Re: Alignment of instrument names

[Simon Albrecht]

On 10.11.2016 15:28, Francesco Napoleoni wrote:
> (how) can I get instrument names at the start of staves
> automatically aligned to the internal page margin?

Unfortunately you can’t. There already is a request for that feature in 
our issue tracker, but it hasn’t been implemented yet.

> The code (minimal, I hope)

Not quite minimal. Minimal would be

%%%%%%%%%%%%
\version "2.19.49"
\new Staff \with {
  instrumentName = "Violoncello e Contrabbasso"
} { 1 }
%%%%%%%%%%%%

You do have to find an appropriate indent value by trial and error. 
However, you /can/ override instrument names’ self-alignment, if you like:

%%%%%%%%%%%%
\version "2.19.49"
<<
  \new Staff \with {
    instrumentName = "Flauti"
  } { 1 }
  \new Staff \with {
    instrumentName = "Violoncello e Contrabbasso"
  } { 1 }
>>
\layout {
  \context {
    \Staff
    \override InstrumentName.self-alignment-X = #LEFT
  }
  indent = 50
}
%%%%%%%%%%

Ultimately, I’d certainly advise you to use
instrumentName = \markup {
  \center-column {
    "Violoncello e"
    "Contrabbasso"
  }
}
or something similar, to avoid the need for such a huge indent.

Best, Simon