blind user, installing on Windows

[David Bobroff]

Orlando,

> >First I want to recommend strongly that you keep these discussions on the
> >user list as you will likely get more help that way.
>
>I didn't know there was one.

Ah, your first message came in on the list so I thought you had subscribed.
 To subscribe, send a message to:

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With the subject line:

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Then you will likely receive a message for you to confirm.

> >I haven't used LilyPond in Windows/cygwin in a long time but I recall that
> >it is necessary to select the packages for publishing for LilyPond to work.
> > As for why you don't seem to be able to find LilyPond, I'm not sure.
> >Maybe you have to select the publishing packages for LilyPond to be listed
> >as available.
>
>How do I do that?

I haven't used the Windows/cygwin version in a long time so I'm not sure
how to help you.

>Are you saying that you write out scores, labeling each staff, only using 
>ASCII?

That is exactly what I'm saying.

>Could my Lilypond input be exported to other inferior file 
>formats like whatever Finale uses?

No.  There is a converter for changing Finale's ETF files into LilyPond
input syntax.  It is not perfect but it can be quite useful.

>Of course, I didn't realize until now that I'd need a legal 
>sized printer tray to accommodate large paper for scores.

Where are you?  Are you in the US?  Legal size paper is 8.5 inches wide
like letter paper, but longer.  That shouldn't bother most printers.  If
you need something on larger paper it should be possible to take the
generated PDF to a digital print shop and have them print it on larger
paper like 11x17 ledger.

>I've already found the link for the tutorial.  I may need to be talked 
>through certain aspects of the notational system, if anything is illegible 
>with a screen reader.  But that should be it.  It would of course help to 
>see a piece I already know, so I can study the notation syntax.  is there 
>some sort of library of scores?

This is the way to go.  The tutorial shows some very simple examples.
There are some examples of varying complexity at:

http://lilypond.org/doc/v2.2/examples.html

You can examine the input as well as graphic output of the music, and
listen to MIDI files of the examples.

When you say "totally blind" do you mean that you can't make visual sense
out of things more than a couple of centimeters from your face, or that you
can't tell light from dark?  I don't mean to give offense.  I'm just
curious how you use a computer.  Outputting printed music would be an extra
challenge for those with serious visual impairments.  As a side note, you
may be interested to know that there has been discussion on one of the
LilyPond lists (there are three; user, bug, and devel) about braille output
from LilyPond.  I'm not sure if development in that direction has gone very
far.

-David