3.4.1 Extracting fragments of music

It is possible to quote small fragments of a large score directly from the output. This can be compared to clipping a piece of a paper score with scissors.

This is done by defining the measures that need to be cut out separately. For example, including the following definition

\layout {
  clip-regions
  = #(list
      (cons
       (make-rhythmic-location 5 1 2)
       (make-rhythmic-location 7 3 4)))
}

will extract a fragment starting halfway the fifth measure, ending in the seventh measure. The meaning of 5 1 2 is: after a 1/2 note in measure 5, and 7 3 4 after 3 quarter notes in measure 7.

More clip regions can be defined by adding more pairs of rhythmic-locations to the list.

In order to use this feature, LilyPond must be invoked with ‘-dclip-systems’. The clips are output as EPS files, and are converted to PDF and PNG if these formats are switched on as well.

For more information on output formats, see Invoking lilypond.


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LilyPond — Notation Reference v2.18.2 (stable-branch).