Re: The mystery of vertical spacing

[Knute Snortum]

On Sun, Sep 5, 2021 at 1:01 PM Paul Hodges <pwh@cassland.org> wrote:
>
> One of the hardest things to find information on, it seems to me, is how
> to adjust vertical spacing.  There's lots of information about adjusting
> spacing within systems, but little about fitting systems on a page.
>
> In the example below, there is lots of space between the systems.  The
> global font size is 20.2; if I increase the font size to 20.3 Lilypond
> will no longer tolerate having these systems on the same page.  Why? -
> there's plenty of room.  More to the point, how do I tell LilyPond to
> allow the systems to get closer?
>
> Paul

It's a big topic, but have a look here:

https://lilypond.org/doc/v2.23/Documentation/notation/vertical-spacing

Basically, you would be fiddling with these values:

%%%
\paper {
  system-system-spacing =
    #'((basic-distance . 12)
       (minimum-distance . 8)
       (padding . 1)
       (stretchability . 30)) % defaults: 12, 8, 1, 60
}
%%%

Make sure that basic-distance > minimum-distance > padding.  I play a
lot with the stretchability value.  This controls how tightly the
systems "hang" from the top.

--
Knute Snortum