On Tue, 3 Jan 2023 at 05:28, Aaron Hill <
lilypond@hillvisions.com> wrote:
>
> Hi folks,
>
> I noticed a peculiar quirk with how short ties are handled in LilyPond.
> Take a look at the attached image (source code provided below). Notice
> that the ties are not positioned the same. I suspect it might be
> because the Fs are not the same distance away from each other, so in one
> case LilyPond leaves the tie sitting on the staff line and in the other
> the tie is pushed down.
>
> For my purposes, I prefer the second rendering. Especially with the
> slur present, I find that the tie in the first version is getting lost
> between the notes. This example is a contrived excerpt from a larger
> work, but this pattern shows up several times in the piece. While I was
> proofreading, I almost thought one of the ties was missing. Attached is
> a capture from my PDF viewer showing a particularly bad instance.
>
> Is there a way for me to ensure that these short ties are consistently
> offset to improve readability?
Looking at the Internals Reference for Tie there is a "horizontal-distance-penalty-factor" parameter in the details property that seems to correspond to what you are looking for.
When increasing its value (50 or 100 for instance) the positioning of the first tie is rendered like the second.