Re: Fitting as many lines as possible on a page

[Jonathan Kulp]

Anthony W. Youngman wrote:
> > Yes, currently the vertical page layouting algorithm of lilypond is sub-
> > optimal. Lilypond reserves 10% of the total space to make sure it does 
> > not
> > overprint staves. This means that 10% of the page will always be 
> > wasted...
> > Unfortunately, there is no easy way around this for now, until someone 
> > starts
> > working on the vertical staff layouting seriously...
> ARRGGGHHHH
>
> This is a TERRIBLE feature!!!
>
> Is there any way to disable this? To me, a page turn can easily be the 
> difference between a piece of music that's playable, and one that isn't. 
> To discover that lily is wasting 10% of the page is a nasty surprise.
>
> A page turn can easily take 30 seconds when you're sitting on a 
> bandstand, and if your music is in a lyre then turning pages just isn't 
> on (especially when you stick out like a sore thumb because you're in 
> the front rank!)
>
> (Actually, this is probably my biggest complaint about lily. I know 
> "beautiful" and "playable" tend to go together, but sometimes 
> "beautiful" and "practical" don't play nicely together and lily 
> overemphasises the beauty. I *need* music to fit either on A5, or one or 
> two sides of A4. I'll accept a hefty hit in other areas to avoid that 
> third page, and often do have to accept it in nasty tweaks to force the 
> music to fit.)
>
> Cheers,
> Wol

I don't have this problem as long as I use

ragged-last-bottom = ##f

and (if necessary) specify the page-count I want in the paper block. It 
fills up the whole page of each page with no wasted space in exactly how 
many pages I want.  Give this a try before despairing too much! :)

Jon
--
Jonathan Kulp
http://www.jonathankulp.com