Re: Having trouble with custom paper size/layout

[arvidgr]

Eric Schwartz <address@hidden> writes:

> I'm currently working on a vocal score. I'd like to lay out the
> music on legal paper, landscape, with two pages per sheet. Like this
> laughable excuse for ASCII art:
> 
> 
> -----------------------------
> |    Title    |             |
> | =========== | =========== |
> | =========== | =========== |
> | =========== | =========== |
> | =========== | =========== |
> |             |             |
> -----------------------------

That's good ASCII art to these eyes.  :)


> 
> My first effort has failed. I tried creating a new paper size in
> paper.scm with the following:
> 
> ("halflegal" . (cons (* 7.0 in) (* 8.5 in)))
> 
> Also here's my "\paper" block:
> 
>   \paper {
>     #(set-paper-size "halflegal")
>     paper-width = 7\in
>     paper-height = 8.5\in
>     top-margin = 5\mm
>     left-margin = 16\mm
>     line-width = 156.0\mm
>     bottom-margin = 6\mm
>   }
> 
> 
> But while that successfully constricts what's rendered in the ps/pdf file, it
> doesn't generate anything printable: systems are cut off mid-measure, and the
> question of 2-per-page is not addressed. 

That's strange.  It sort of matches what I use for a 6" x 9" book:

#(append! paper-alist '(("6x9" . (cons (* 6 in) (* 9 in)))))

#(set-global-staff-size 16)
#(set-default-paper-size "6x9")

\paper {
  left-margin = 20 \mm
  line-width = 112 \mm
  top-margin = 10 \mm
  bottom-margin = 10 \mm
}

\layout {
  \context {
    \Lyrics
    \override LyricText #'font-size = #1
  }
}

(This is with 2.11.23, but there should be no difference there.)

The font-size override is there to make the lyric text more readable
with small music; you should probably just disregard that.  I set the
global staff size in the same file as well (this is all pasted from an
include file I use).  I see two[1] possibilities here:

- I've done something with the syntax that works better, or
- your right side margin is too narrow (5.8 mm, if my calculations are
  correct).
- something strange happens after LilyPond in your tool chain.

I'm not sure if any of this was useful to you, but I've used the above
setup successfully to produce PDFs in 6x9 format.  (These are then
joined with pdflatex and pdfpages, and the margins further adjusted
there, but that's another story entirely.)

Slightly off-topic, the spacing can get somewhat strange when
typesetting multi-staff vocal music on minimal space, like in these
cases.  Nothing I can easily reproduce in a minimal bug report, just
a bit too wide at times.  Has anyone else seen this?  (That's with
2.11 and the new spacing stuff, of course.)


[1] for some reason, this always happens to me.  I take some comfort
in the thought that it apparently also happened a lot to the Spanish
Inquisition.
-- 

Arvid