Re: lyrics not quite lining up

[Mats Bengtsson]

Russ Ross wrote:
> I'm using Lilypond 2.0.1 and having trouble getting lyrics to line
> up properly.  They are finding the right notes, but they tend to be
> a bit off to the left or right.  They end up overlapping bar lines
> and melisma lines and they are a bit hard to follow in some places.
> Is this a setup error of some kind?  I'm using default options
> everywhere on a Mandrake 9.2 setup.  It's pretty consistent, so
> doing manual overrides seems overkill (it would have to happen on
> every lyric).

Please send a small example file that illustrates the problems.

Also, please take a look at the examples
http://lilypond.org/doc/v2.0/input/regression/out-www/collated-files.html#lyric-align.ly 

and
http://lilypond.org/doc/v2.0/input/regression/out-www/collated-files.html#lyrics-bar.ly
to see if they give answer to some of your questions.

> Two other lyrics questions:
>
> 1. I have some syllables that span multiple measures and even
> multiple lines.  With a melisma it works fine, but with a "--" it
> only puts one dash in (as opposed to a dashed line which would seem
> to be better).  When the syllable spans an entire line, lilypond
> doesn't put anything on that line (not even a single dash) and
> pulls the next staff up as though there were no lyrics there.  Is
> there a way to fix this?

There's no automatic solution (see 
http://mail.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-user/2003-10/msg00164.html)
but you could always do it with some manual work, see
http://mail.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-user/2002-05/msg00242.html

> 2. When I have a melisma that ends at a rest, I get a warning.  I
> can get around it by putting an empty lyric ("") on the rest but
> then I get another warning about having a lyric with no note.  I can
> also cut the melisma a bit short and have an empty lyric on the
> last part of the note, but this seems a bit clumsy.  Is there a
> better way of doing this?


    /Mats