Re: top and bottom margins

[clive CATTERALL]

I only get the digest form of this list so I apologise if someone has dived
in and answered this already.

I found the (somewhat confusingly named) variable textheight.  This sets the
vertical amount of the page available for lilypond to fill with music.
There sppear to be no command to explicitly set the margins as the actual
vertical extent of the music is determined by the nature of the staves, and
the spacing between them, (also how many notes extending above and below the
outer staves?).  Thus the top and bottom margins are a little variable, but
you can allow more space to fill with music by setting the textheight
variable within the \paper block:

  \paper {
   textheight= 26.0 \cm
  }

I am not sure why the variable textheight does not have a backslash in front
of it.  Clearly I don't understand enough about the use of identifiers!

I don't know whether collisions between footers and music are handled if the
space for music and header and footer text overlap.

Apologies if this is old hat to you experienced users, but I note from many
examples in the mutopia list that many people leave this as the default
value and kill more trees than I would consider guilty.

Clive Catterall

------------------------
baroque flutes made using traditional methods and
materials
 http://www.flutes.fsbusiness.co.uk

----- Original Message -----
From: clive CATTERALL <address@hidden>
To: <address@hidden>
Sent: Friday, March 07, 2003 7:42 PM
Subject: top and bottom margins


> I have a problem fitting the first movement of one of Telemann's canonical
> sonatas for two flutes onto two pages to avoid having to turn pages in the
> middle of a movement.
>
> In one of the mutopia lilypond files I have found the (undocumented?)
> ChoirStaff context which seems successfully to put a brace around the
front
> of the two grouped staves allowing the spacing between staff groups to be
> relatively small without your eye skipping to the wrong staff while
> sightreading.
>
> However, when using ly2dvi I seem to get an enormous space at the top and
> bottom of the music, presumably for documentation.  I'd rather put this
> information on the flysheet, as is common practise.  I can find no
> documentation about altering the top and bottom margin.  I found no
> references in the past postings to this group, so does anyone know how to
do
> this?
>
> Currently using 16pt I have a space of 41 mm between the top staff and the
> top of the page and 81mm at the bottom.  I have 5 pairs of staves on the
> page and the A4 Barenreiter edition I am working from has 7 perfectly
> legible staves of the same size per page!
>
> Clive Catterall
> ------------------------
> baroque flutes made using traditional methods and materials
> http://www.flutes.fsbusiness.co.uk
>