Re: Multi-column text

[Reinhold Kainhofer]

Am Donnerstag, 4. August 2011, 00:49:11 schrieb Christopher R. Maden:
> On 08/03/2011 06:07 PM, Reinhold Kainhofer wrote:
> > Nope, Lilypond doesn't try to be a full text layout application. You
> > cannot do multi-column text with automatic line- and
> > column-breaking.
> > 
> > I am using Latex for such things like preface, lyrics and
> > translations (Initially I tried to use lilypond, that's why I wrote
> > that other snippet that Harm suggested; But then decided that
> > lilypond simply isn't capable of what I need), critical report, etc.
> 
> Thanks to you and Harm.  That was what I was afraid of... I don’t care
> enough to make the quantum leap to using LaTeX or DocBook, but I was
> hoping to save a bit of page space.  Given some of the long titles, I
> guess I’ll just go single-column for now, with \column-lines.

Actually, I probably gave the wrong impression that lilypond is not able at 
all to use two-column layout. That's not true, you can format text in two 
columns, even with automatic line breaking. What does NOT work, though is line 
breaks, automatic column breaking and text flowing from one column to the 
next.

Attached is a sample file showing how to display text in two long columns. 
(notice that you can use either \justify (for each paragraph separately, plus 
you need to add a \vspace #0 after each paragraph; advantage is that you can 
use arbitrary markup in the paragraph) or \justify-string (which has no 
problems with new paragraphs, but you can only pass it a string, no other 
markup). 
If you plan to use footnotes (available only in 2.14 and 2.15.x; I'm not sure 
how well they work in 2.14, though, as they are still in development) in the 
text, then you'll have to use \justify.
I have added such an example, too. If it doesn't work with your version, 
simply comment out that line to see the rest of the example.

Cheers,
Reinhold
-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------
Reinhold Kainhofer, address@hidden, http://reinhold.kainhofer.com/
 * Financial & Actuarial Math., Vienna Univ. of Technology, Austria
 * http://www.fam.tuwien.ac.at/, DVR: 0005886
 * LilyPond, Music typesetting, http://www.lilypond.org

columns.ly
Description: Text Data

columns.pdf
Description: Adobe PDF document