Re: Horizontalized scores

[Jay Anderson]

On Fri, Feb 7, 2014 at 11:24 AM, Erik Linde <address@hidden> wrote:
> Typically the way we have been generating the images of the sheet music that
> we use on the website, is by setting some of the layout attributes to really
> large values, for example:
>
> ragged-last = ##t
> paper-width = 2400.0\cm
> paper-height = 50.0\cm
>
> or perhaps
>
> #(set! paper-alist (cons '("my size" . (cons (* 2000 in) (* 50 in)))
> paper-alist))
> #(set-default-paper-size "my size")
>
> And then generating a pdf, which we then convert to images.
>
> This works very well when generating a simple piece, such as a piano piece,
> but whenever there are multiple instruments, and when the piece is very
> long, such as is the case for most symphonies (which happen to be the most
> popular pieces on Notezilla), the time required to typeset a file seems to
> increase exponentially with the complexity of the music.
>
> For a symphony, it could easily go from a few minutes, when using a default
> layout, such as A4 or letter, to upwards of 10 hours, when using a custom
> paper format that is extremely wide, for example a 500cm or 1000cm in width.
> Please feel free to use this link to download the example that illustrates
> this - Beethoven's 3rd Symphony Mvt. 1. If I try running "lilypond
> ScoreMvtI.ly" in this example in a default layout, it takes maybe 10-15
> minutes or so to typeset. If I uncomment row 27 and 28 (which is where I
> specify the *huge* paper size), it takes maybe 10 hours...
>
> I am wondering if someone on this mailing list knows of any work-arounds or
> tricks that I could employ here to shorten the this time? The only
> requirements for us is that, in the end, that we get one long horizontal
> score, where the vertical spacing between the staffs is identical throughout
> the piece. Whatever method we can use to get there would be great to hear
> about! Maybe one way could be to split up the score into just 3-4 rows
> instead, and then merge these in Photoshop - my concern with that method
> would be that the vertical distances between staffs would probably not be
> identical, which would mean that the horizontal score simply would not
> work...

Try this:

\paper {
  page-breaking = #ly:one-line-breaking
}

This should make the compilation much quicker. Also "\override
Score.NonMusicalPaperColumn #'line-break-permission = ##f" may be
useful.

-----Jay