LilyPond Options

This dialog appears when you select File → Print, File → Print Preview and File → Export → Export LilyPond File. It allows you to alter options specific to LilyPond export. (When using the Print or Print Preview options, your work is exported to a hidden temporary file. As of Rosegarden Thorn, LilyPond is the only available print engine.)

Export content concerns tracks that have segments in them, which are the tracks that are not empty. It is possible to export “All” tracks, “Non-muted” tracks, the current “Selected” track, or “Selected” segments. If LilyPond export is launched from the Notation view, Selected segments include the same selection which was used in opening the Notation view.

The LilyPond version installed on the system should be automatically detected in the dialog, but it is possible to export to any other LilyPond version from 2.6 up to the most recent version supported. Historically, LilyPond's syntax has changed somewhat over time, but since LilyPond version 2.6 changes have have been less radical and more maintainable.

TIP: Occasionally we will fail to catch a change in LilyPond syntax. When this happens, it may be useful to choose an older version than the one installed on your system. If you are using Print or Print Preview, the processing engine will run the convert-ly utility automatically, and that will usually take care of this sort of problem.

Paper size can be A3, A4, A5, A6, Legal, US Letter, and Tabloid. All paper sizes may also be used in Landscape mode.

Staff size affects the size of the notes. If you want to fit more staffs into the paper, you should decrease the staff size.

Certain sizes are marked with an asterisk (*). These are suggested as being the best sizes to use for optimum output quality, although with recent versions of LilyPond it does not seem to matter which sizes you choose.

Tempo marks are not exported by default. If selected, LilyPond will print a tempo mark for the First tempo change, or for All tempo changes. If tempo changes rarely, you may want to export all tempo marks, but if tempo changes too often, the marks will jumble together and be illegible, so you may want to export only the first mark in that case.

NOTE: Tempo marks may conflict with notation. There is not currently any way to improve the positioning of the tempo marks, and this would require hand editing an exported .ly file.

Lyrics are exported if present. Lyrics are aligned left by default. Sometimes center or right alignment provide more pleasing output.

If selected, Rosegarden's own beams will be exported, otherwise LilyPond will be left to calculate beams automatically. In general, Rosegarden's automatic beaming is terrible, so it may be quicker to leave that alone and rely on LilyPond to clean up the mess. However, if you have gone to some trouble to specify your own beaming, you probably want to try this option. It generally works, but exporting beams can lead to export problems, because it makes the LilyPond syntax much more messy and prone to conflicts.

If checked, track staff brackets will be exported. These are configured through Track Parameters and provide a crude mechanism for grouping parts on a score.

[EXPAND. LINK TO WIKI-IZED FIDELIO TUTORIAL]

[EXPAND. LINK TO WIKI-IZED VERSION OF SHELAGH'S TUTORIAL]

The staffs normally cover the whole page from top to bottom. When there are only a few staffs, this option places the extra vertical space at the bottom of the page.

You can edit headers both in LilyPond export dialog and through Composition → Edit Document Properties.

Some of the headers will appear only in LilyPond output. The position of the printable headers match roughly with the positions of the headers in the printed output. Below is shown an example with all headers and lyrics entered with Unicode text.

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