On Mon, 30 Jan 2017 22:29:46 -0700 Anthony Fok <f...@debian.org> wrote:
> Control: wontfix Ok. Your package. But see below. > On Sat, 20 Feb 2016 00:23:22 -0600 "Karl O. Pinc" <k...@meme.com> > wrote: > > It'd be nice if lilypond had a better way of specifying paper > > size. It defaults to a4 and figuring out how to set it to > > letter is non-trivial for the inexperienced. > > > > For the record, one approach is: > > > > lilypond -dpaper-size='"letter"' foo.ly > > > > It'd be especially nice if lilypond used /etc/papersize. > > > > It'd be nice if lilypond had a PAPERSIZE env var, and/or > > a shortcut --paper-size command line option. > > > > It'd be nice if any of the above was mentioned in the man page. > > > > A ~/.lilypond/config file (or some such) containing default command > > line option values wouldn't hurt either. > > > > Thanks for listening. > > Hello Karl, > > Thank you for your comment. > Actually, as a somewhat frequent LilyPond user myself, I don't even > know about the -dpaper-size command-line option, and I don't think it > is documented in LilyPond documentation either. > > Rather, the officially documented method is outlined in > http://lilypond.org/doc/v2.18/Documentation/notation/paper-size-and-automatic-scaling, > i.e., by setting the paper size in the .ly file itself: > > \paper { > #(set-paper-size "letter") > } Ok. I probably went to the man page first, to wind up using the command line option. > I use Frescobaldi (a great GUI editor for LilyPond) myself, and its > Score Wizard feature automatically generates needed skeleton LilyPond > code for you, together with the set-paper-size command above. > > I highly recommend that you do the same instead, i.e. using > Frescobaldi (sudo apt-get install frescobaldi) and setting the paper > size inside your .ly file. Thanks. But I'm not interested in a GUI. > Changing the paper size on-the-fly using -dpaper-size is unreliable > IMHO. You yourself may remember to add the "-dpaper-size letter" > option, but others who receive the same .ly file with are not obliged > to do so, and would get unexpected results such as extra page, ugly > line-breaks, etc. due to unexpectedly different page width and page > height. Good advice. Makes sense to me that every lilypond input file contain a paper size specification. (Perhaps this should be a recommendation in the lilypond manual.) > The fact that LilyPond does not read /etc/papersize is by design, and > I think it is a good thing. Ignoring user environment variations like > /etc/papersize helps ensure that the same .ly would produce the > exactly same result everywhere. This sounds laudable, but unrealistic. I don't have any a4 paper, the default, and this is probably true for almost everybody in North America. My feeling is that if the author of the lilypond file did not explicitly specify a paper size then lilypond should be free to print on the paper available. Even if it means that the result comes out looking different. If the composer wants to ensure conformity in print output it's up to the composer to do so. Otherwise, the composer should be allowed to distribute music to be printed on whatever paper the musician has available. Speaking as a novice, I'd like to be able to typeset some music and print it with minimum effort. It's bad enough having to figure out lilypond itself without having oh-my-!-now-I-have-to-deal-with-paper-size issues. If you're expecting everybody to use a GUI that takes care of paper size issues that's one thing, but it seems to me that the lilypond packaging should at least have some options available for non-GUI users. My conclusion for the moment, if I've not convinced you to change anything, is that there should at least be a note in lilypond's README.Debian that lilypond does not follow the Debian convention and honor /etc/papersize. A note about what to do to get your music to print would also be helpful. Perhaps the following section could be added to the README.Debian: LilyPond Paper Size On Debian ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ LilyPond does not honor /etc/papersize, the system preferred page size. Instead it typesets for it's default, the A4 paper size, when no paper size is otherwise specified. A composer who wishs to ensure consistency in typeset output should always specify a paper size in their *.ly input file. This can be done with a ``set-paper-size`` declaration in a ``\paper`` block, as follows: :: \paper { #(set-paper-size "letter") } A user who wishes to override the LilyPond default paper size may do so from the command line with the ``-d`` option, as follows: :: lilypond -dpaper-size='"letter"' foo.ly Regards, Karl <k...@meme.com> Free Software: "You don't pay back, you pay forward." -- Robert A. Heinlein
