Re: NR 4.1.6: blank-last-page-force and penalty values

[David Rogers]

On Sat, 11 Aug 2012 15:28:30 +1000
Joe Neeman <address@hidden> wrote:

> On Fri, Aug 10, 2012 at 7:28 PM, Federico Bruni <address@hidden>
> wrote:
> 
> > NR 4.1.6, \paper variable for page breaking
> > http://lilypond.org/doc/v2.15/**Documentation/notation/other-_**
> > 005cpaper-variables#_**005cpaper-variables-for-page-**breaking<http://lilypond.org/doc/v2.15/Documentation/notation/other-_005cpaper-variables#_005cpaper-variables-for-page-breaking>
> >
> > I'd like to force the add of a blank page in case the number of
> > pages in a book is odd.
> > I guess I should use blank-last-page-force.
> >
> > I had a look at ly/paper-defaults-init.ly to see the default values
> > and I see that penalty values are numbers.
> > Default value of blank-last-page-force is 0, so I guess that as I
> > increase the number it's more likely to get the blank page.
> >
> 
> No, lilypond will never put a blank page at the end. You could
> probably achieve that in a pdf editor.

pdftk will do the job of adding a page anywhere in a PDF quite easily,
but it won't actually create a page, even a blank one. If you keep a
blank PDF page of the correct size then you can add it to any score
that needs it. Maybe there are other programs that will do this job in
fewer steps or with less effort, but the following command will add your
score and your blank page together to form a single new PDF:

pdftk my_score.pdf my_blank_page.pdf output my_new_score.pdf


> Also, the definition is not very clear, because it doesn't say
> explicitly
> > what it actually does.. you have to guess it:
> >
> > ###
> > blank-last-page-force
> > The penalty for ending the score on an odd-numbered page.
> > ###
> >
> 
> If you make blank-last-page-force large and use
> ly:page-turn-breaking, then lilypond will be unlikely to produce a
> score where the last page is odd-numbered. Instead, it will adjust
> the spacing in order to use one page more or fewer.


It seems to me that blank-last-page-force, when used as intended, is
actually forcing NO blank last page, by making sure some music is on
that last even-numbered page. Do I have the correct idea (more
or less)?

-- 
David R