Re: Pseudo-handwritten font

[Tim McNamara]

On Mar 15, 2013, at 10:38 AM, Tim McNamara wrote:
> On Mar 15, 2013, at 4:52 AM, Robert Schmaus <address@hidden> wrote:
> 
>> Hi Torsten,
>> 
>> first of all: This looks just amazing! Thanks for sharing it!
>> Even though I like LilyPond's original typesetting a lot, I noticed that
>> sheets get more difficult to read in certain lighting conditions (I
>> assume you are a jazz musician as well and know what I mean ...).
>> Especially for those, who have to play actual notes (in contrast to guys
>> like me who mainly need the chords). This somewhat more "massive" look
>> of the written music should be easier to read in murky stage light. 
>> 
>> The same, of course applies to ChordNames - right now, I combine your
>> work with a jazzy font found here:
>> https://sites.google.com/site/jpgzic/
>> You probably know that one ...
> 
> Thank you for that!  It helped me be able to render the chord names in the 
> LilyJAZZText font; I had not been able to figure out how to do that.
> 
> My next question is how to apply the font to the header block.  I also use 
> \markup, \fill-line and \column above the music to list solo orders and any 
> other notes for the arrangement.  I don't know how to apply the font to that, 
> either.  It would be nice to be able to do so just for the sake of visual 
> consistency.

OK, I'm a dummy and Torsten's example file clearly showed the way to use the 
text font with \markup, I just hadn't noticed it.

     \markup { \override ChordNames . ChordName #'font-name = "LilyJAZZText"
       ... }

Since this comes right after the \header block in my .ly template, it then 
automatically applies to all \markups on the page, which is very nice.  Note 
that Torsten's example in his test file has at one point:

     \override ChordNames . ChordName #'font-name = "LilyJAZZ Text" 

which doesn't work; it needs to be 

     \override ChordNames . ChordName #'font-name = "LilyJAZZText"

at least on my Mac.  Also, I had to put the two OTF fonts he provided into 

     Lilypond.app/Contents/Resources/share/lilypond/current/fonts/otf

to get it to work.  There might be other places to put them and have them work. 
 On Mac, though, there are multiple places where fonts are stored and Lilypond 
probably won't know all the places to look.  Font handling is kind of goofy on 
Macs.  I will have to do this by hand every time I update Lilypond, unless 
those fonts make it into the default distribution.  Perhaps the Gonville font 
could also be included in the default distribution which would give Lilypond 
users a couple of options right out of the box.  Not a deal breaker, just an 
inconvenience.  

I really like how the LilyJAZZ music font looks, it is very readable in its 
visual simplicity.  Since I put the PDFs on my iPad using UnRealBook, 
readability is very important given the small screen size- excessive 
ornamentation which looks great on A4 or letter size paper gets a little blocky 
on the iPad.  The trade off is that I have thousands of pages of music in a 
very easily portable package and no longer need a two wheel cart to lug a box 
full of books to a gig.


> Is there a simple way to apply the text font to all text on the page?

So far the answer to that seems to be "no."  I've been able to get everything 
but the \header block to use the LilyJAZZ and LilyJAZZText fonts.  Which is in 
its own right very cool, but it'd be nice to be visually consistent across the 
page.  Having no skills with Scheme or any other programming language, I don't 
know how to hack this to work.

Every time I use the program I am constantly amazed by the power of LilyPond 
and the skills and generosity of the community even though I only scratch the 
surface for my needs.

Tim