Manuscript paper, also called staff paper or music paper, is paper preprinted with staves, and often with clefs as well, that composers use when writing their compositions. Before it became available, each composer or assistant had to laboriously draw their own staves onto blank paper or parchment.
Manuscript paper is available in a variety of forms, including loose leaf, pads and notebook, with different sized staves, different sized spaces between staves, and in varying page sizes with different numbers of staves per page. Some paper also contains instrument names on the appropriate staves. For full scores, the most common size is 11 x 17 inches. Manuscript paper can also be easily, and more cheaply, produced by printing on blank paper from a computer using standardized templates or designing ones own.