Long syllable vs. span bar

[Simon Albrecht]

Hello everybody,

in full scores, choir parts are often typeset with span bars and 
traditionally, lyric syllables often cross those spanbars with whiteout. 
LilyPond, however, distorts spacing to place the span bar after the 
syllable, and I can’t think of an override to change that. The second 
example shows using a markup with null dimensions, which isn’t the right 
solution for several reasons but in this case shows what I aim for 
(except I didn’t add whiteout and the lyric extender is obviously wrong).

Is there a better solution?

Best, Simon

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
\version "2.19.80"

\paper {
  line-width = 110
  indent = 0
}

\score {
  \new StaffGroup <<
    { 4 4 4 4~ 4 8 8 4 4~ 4 8 8 2 }
    \addlyrics {
      a ver -- y looong __ syl -- la -- ble,
      \markup \with-dimensions-from \null looong __ syl -- la -- ble
    }
    { 1 1 1 }
  >>
}

syl-vs-spanbar.ly
Description: Text Data

syl-vs-spanbar.preview.png
Description: PNG image