mpdolce - LilyPond

Chapter 4: Tweaking output 106
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Changing the outside-staff-priority can also be used to control the vertical placement
of individual objects, although the results may not always be desirable. Suppose we would
like “Text3” to be placed above “Text4” in the example under Automatic behavior, above (see
Section 4.4.1 [Automatic behavior], page 99). All we need to do is to look up the priority of
TextScript in the IR or in the tables above, and increase the priority of “Text3” to a higher
value:
c2^"Text1"
c^"Text2"
\once \override TextScript #'outside-staff-priority = #500
c^"Text3"
c^"Text4"
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Text3
Text2
Text1 Text4
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This certainly lifts “Text3” above “Text4” but it also lifts it above “Text2”, and “Text4”
now drops down. Perhaps this is not so good. What we would really like to do is to position all
the annotation at the same distance above the staff. To do this, we clearly will need to space the
notes out horizontally to make more room for the text. This is done using the textLengthOn
command.
\textLengthOn
By default, text produced by markup takes up no horizontal space as far as laying out the music
is concerned. The \textLengthOn command reverses this behavior, causing the notes to be
spaced out as far as is necessary to accommodate the text:
\textLengthOn % Cause notes to space out to accommodate text
c2^"Text1"
c^"Text2"
c^"Text3"
c^"Text4"
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Text1Text2 Text3Text4 � � � �
The command to revert to the default behavior is \textLengthOff. Remember \once only
works with \override, \set, \revert or unset, so cannot be used with \textLengthOn.
Markup text will also avoid notes which project above the staff. If this is not desired, the
automatic displacement upwards may be turned off by setting the priority to #f. Here’s an
example to show how markup text interacts with such notes.
% This markup is short enough to fit without collision
c2^"Tex"
c''2
R1
% This is too long to fit, so it is displaced upwards
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