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5.1 Invoking lilypond

Nicely titled output is created through a separate program: lilypond is a script that uses the LilyPond formatting engine (which is in a separate program) and LaTeX to create a nicely titled piece of sheet music, in PDF (Portable Document Format) format.

             lilypond [option]... file...

To have lilypond read from stdin, use a dash - for file. The program supports the following options.

-k,--keep
Keep the temporary directory with all output files. The temporary directory is created in the current directory as lilypond.dir.
-d,--dependencies
Write Makefile dependencies for every input file.
-h,--help
Print usage help.
-I,--include=dir
Add dir to LilyPond's include path.
-m,--no-paper
Produce MIDI output only.
--no-lily
Do not run lilypond-bin. Useful for debugging lilypond.
-o,--output=file
Generate output to file. The extension of file is ignored.
--no-pdf
Do not generate (PDF) or PS.


--png
Also generate pictures of each page, in PNG format.
--psgz
Gzip the postscript file.
--html
Make a .HTML file with links to all output files.
--preview
Also generate a picture of the first system of the score.


-s,--set=key=val
Add key= val to the settings, overriding those specified in the files. Possible keys: language, latexheaders, latexpackages, latexoptions, papersize, pagenumber, linewidth, orientation, textheight.
-v,--version
Show version information.
-V,--verbose
Be verbose. This prints out commands as they are executed, and more information about the formatting process is printed.
--debug
Print even more information. This is useful when generating bug reports.
-w,--warranty
Show the warranty with which GNU LilyPond comes. (It comes with NO WARRANTY!)

5.1.1 Titling layout

lilypond extracts the following header fields from the LY files to generate titling; an example demonstrating all these fields is in input/test/lilypond-testpage.ly:

title
The title of the music. Centered on top of the first page.
subtitle
Subtitle, centered below the title.
poet
Name of the poet, left flushed below the subtitle.
composer
Name of the composer, right flushed below the subtitle.
meter
Meter string, left flushed below the poet.
opus
Name of the opus, right flushed below the composer.
arranger
Name of the arranger, right flushed below the opus.
instrument
Name of the instrument, centered below the arranger.
dedication
To whom the piece is dedicated.
piece
Name of the piece, left flushed below the instrument.
head
A text to print in the header of all pages. It is not called header, because \header is a reserved word in LilyPond.
copyright
A text to print in the footer of the first page. Default is to print the standard footer also on the first page. Note that if the score consists of only a single page, the first page is also the last page, and in this case, the tagline is printed instead of the copyright.
footer
A text to print in the footer of all but the last page.
tagline
Line to print at the bottom of last page. The default text is “Engraved by LilyPond version-number”.

5.1.2 Additional parameters

The lilypond program responds to several parameters specified in a \paper section of the input file. They can be overridden by supplying a --set command line option.

language
Specify LaTeX language: the babel package will be included. Default: unset.

Read from the \header block.

latexheaders
Specify additional LaTeX headers file.

Normally read from the \header block. Default value: empty.

latexpackages
Specify additional LaTeX packages file. This works cumulative, so you can add multiple packages using multiple -s=latexpackages options. Normally read from the \header block. Default value: geometry.
latexoptions
Specify additional options for the LaTeX \documentclass. You can put any valid value here. This was designed to allow lilypond to produce output for double-sided paper, with balanced margins and page numbers on alternating sides. To achieve this specify twoside.
orientation
Set orientation. Choices are portrait or landscape. Is read from the \paper block, if set.
textheight
The vertical extension of the music on the page. It is normally calculated automatically, based on the paper size.
linewidth
The music line width. It is normally read from the \paper block.
papersize
The paper size (as a name, e.g. a4). It is normally read from the \paper block.
pagenumber
If set to no, no page numbers will be printed. If set to a positive integer, start with this value as the first page number.
fontenc
The font encoding, should be set identical to the font-encoding property in the score.

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This page is for LilyPond-2.2.6 (stable-branch).

Report errors to <bug-lilypond@gnu.org>.