12.4.2 How markups work internally

In a markup like

\raise #0.5 "text example"

\raise is actually represented by the raise-markup function. The markup expression is stored as

(list raise-markup 0.5 (list simple-markup "text example"))

When the markup is converted to printable objects (Stencils), the raise-markup function is called as

(apply raise-markup
       \layout object
       list of property alists
       0.5
       the "text example" markup)

The raise-markup function first creates the stencil for the text example string, and then it raises that Stencil by 0.5 staff space. This is a rather simple example; more complex examples are in the rest of this section, and in scm/define-markup-commands.scm.