Re: Italics in headers

[David Kastrup]

tisimst <address@hidden> writes:

> Tim,
>
> On Wed, Jul 22, 2015 at 11:54 AM, Tim Slattery [via Lilypond] <
> address@hidden> wrote:
>
>> Tim Slattery <[hidden email]
>> <http:///user/SendEmail.jtp?type=node&node=178953&i=0>> wrote:
>>
>> >How can I italicize just part of a header? What I want is a subhead
>> >that reads:
>> >
>> >(From Les Meslanges - 1750)
>>
>> Figured it out:
>>
>> subtitle = \markup { (From \italic{ Les Meslanges}  - 1570)}
>>
>
> Just be aware of one thing if you do it this way (and this is true for
> any font modifier like \bold, etc.): The printed space between "Les"
> and "Meslanges" in your solution (which isn't wrong) will be different
> (usually smaller) than if you put the whole phrase it italics like
> \italic "Les Meslanges". Both ways are correct, but when you put the
> whole thing in italics, LilyPond uses the actual font's "space"
> character instead of letting LilyPond put in its own horizontal
> space. It's a little thing, but just something to be aware of and log
> away. Most of the time, I don't think you'll even notice the
> difference.

That's not the whole gist.  In something like \italic { Les Meslanges },
the space is actually from the normal font since it translates to
{ \italic Les \italic Meslanges }.

You can use something like \line or \justified-lines to change this.  It
is perhaps instructive to compare the results of

\markuplist \override #'(line-width . 15) \justified-lines \box
{ Les Melanges ne sont pas une pipe }

with

\markuplist \override #'(line-width . 15) \box \justified-lines
{ Les Melanges ne sont pas une pipe }

since it makes clear what units a markup command with a single markup
argument like \box (just like \italic, \bold, \huge ...) gets fed when
combined with markup list commands.

-- 
David Kastrup