Re: The mystery of vertical spacing

[Jean Abou Samra]

Le 06/09/2021 à 11:37, Paul Hodges a écrit :
> Thanks for this explanation, which puts flesh onto the understanding I'd
> been coming to.  However, I can't see what your example at the end is
> doing.  Commenting out the override makes no difference to the output,
> so a little explanation might help me.

Look at the bar numbers towards the end. You'll see that more
systems are put on each page if the \override is present.


> What I guess I'd be interested in at this point is a way to force
> LilyPond to put the systems closer against its own (not in this case
> better!) judgement.  If not, for the time being I'll just have to reduce
> the font size slightly and accept the amount of space in the middle of
> the page.

You can always trick the page breaking engine by adding
rows of \noPageBreak in a voice with skips and \pageBreak
somewhere...

For example:

\version "2.22.1"

\paper {
  #(set-paper-size "a8")
}

\new Staff <<
  \relative {
    c d e f
    g a b c
    d e f g
    a b c d
    e f g a
    b c d e
    f g a b
    c d e f
    e a b c
  }
  { \repeat unfold 6 { s1 \noPageBreak } s1 \pageBreak s1*2 }
>>


> As far as I can see, the stretchability parameter modifies the
> positioning of the staves on the page, but doesn't alter the decision
> about whether they can all be fitted on.

I'm pretty sure it does (it's embarrassing that I don't even
know for sure), but this is within the limits of the space
LilyPond guesses is available before line breaking.

Best,
Jean