1.6 About this manual

The manual is divided into the following chapters:

• The Tutorial gives a gentle introduction to typesetting music. First time users should start here.
• Putting it all together explains some general concepts about the lilypond file format. If you are not certain where to place a command, read this chapter!
• Working on LilyPond projects discusses practical uses of LilyPond and how to avoid some common problems.
• Tweaking output shows how to change the default engraving that LilyPond produces.
• Basic notation discusses topics grouped by notation construct. This section gives details about basic notation that will be useful in almost any notation project.
• Instrument-specific notation discusses topics grouped by notation construct. This section gives details about special notation that will only be useful for particular instrument (or vocal) groups.
• Advanced notation discusses topics grouped by notation construct. This section gives details about complicated or unusual notation.
• Changing defaults explains how to fine tune layout.
• Non-musical notation discusses non-musical output such as titles, multiple movements, and how to select which MIDI instruments to use.
• Spacing issues discusses issues which affect the global output, such as selecting paper size or specifying page breaks.
• Interfaces for programmers explains how to create music functions.
• Running LilyPond shows how to run LilyPond and its helper programs. In addition, this section explains how to upgrade input files from previous versions of LilyPond.
• LilyPond-book explains the details behind creating documents with in-line music examples, like this manual.
• Converting from other formats explains how to run the conversion programs. These programs are supplied with the LilyPond package, and convert a variety of music formats to the .ly format.
• The Literature list contains a set of useful reference books for those who wish to know more on notation and engraving.
• The Scheme tutorial presents a short introduction to Scheme, the programming language that music functions use.
• Notation manual tables are a set of tables showing the chord names, MIDI instruments, a list of color names, and the Feta font.
• Templates of LilyPond pieces. Just cut and paste a template into a file, add notes, and you're done!
• The Cheat sheet is a handy reference of the most common LilyPond commands.
• The LilyPond command index is an index of all LilyPond \commands.
• The LilyPond index is a complete index.

Once you are an experienced user, you can use the manual as reference: there is an extensive index¹, but the document is also available in one big page, which can be searched easily using the search facility of a web browser. If you are not familiar with music notation or music terminology (especially if you are a non-native English speaker), it is advisable to consult the glossary as well. The Music glossary, explains musical terms and includes translations to various languages. It is also available in PDF.

This manual is not complete without a number of other documents. They are not available in print, but should be included with the documentation package for your platform

• Program reference.

  The program reference is a set of heavily cross linked HTML pages, which document the nitty-gritty details of each and every LilyPond class, object, and function. It is produced directly from the formatting definitions used.

  Almost all formatting functionality that is used internally, is available directly to the user. For example, all variables that control thickness values, distances, etc., can be changed in input files. There are a huge number of formatting options, and all of them are described in this document. Each section of the notation manual has a See also subsection, which refers to the generated documentation. In the HTML document, these subsections have clickable links.

• Various input examples.

  This collection of files shows various tips and tricks, and is available as a big HTML document, with pictures and explanatory texts included.

• The regression tests.

  This collection of files tests each notation and engraving feature of LilyPond in one file. The collection is primarily there to help us debug problems, but it can be instructive to see how we exercise the program. The format is similar to the tips and tricks document.

In all HTML documents that have music fragments embedded, the LilyPond input that was used to produce that image can be viewed by clicking the image.

The location of the documentation files that are mentioned here can vary from system to system. On occasion, this manual refers to initialization and example files. Throughout this manual, we refer to input files relative to the top-directory of the source archive. For example, input/test/bla.ly may refer to the file lilypond2.x.y/input/test/bla.ly. On binary packages for the Unix platform, the documentation and examples can typically be found somewhere below /usr/share/doc/lilypond/. Initialization files, for example scm/lily.scm, or ly/engraver-init.ly, are usually found in the directory /usr/share/lilypond/.

Finally, this and all other manuals, are available online both as PDF files and HTML from the web site, which can be found at http://www.lilypond.org/.

Other languages: French.