Invoking LilyPond

This chapter details the technicalities of running LilyPond.

• Invoking lilypond: Titling LilyPond scores.
• Invoking the lilypond binary:
• Error messages:
• Reporting bugs:
• Point and click:

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 lilypond 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.

If you use lilypond-book or your own wrapper files, do not use \usepackage[[T1]{fontenc} in the file header but do not forget \usepackage[latin1]{inputenc} if you use any other non-anglosaxian characters.

--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.

--debug

Print even more information. This is useful when generating bugreports.

-w,--warranty

Show the warranty with which GNU LilyPond comes. (It comes with NO WARRANTY!)

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/ly2dvi-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.

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 "Lily was here, version-number".

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 pagenumbers 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.

This page is for LilyPond-2.0.1 (stable-branch).