GNU LilyPond Learning Manual: 1.2 About the documentation

## 1.2 About the documentation

This section explains the different portions of the documentation.

### About the Learning Manual

This book explains how to begin learning LilyPond, as well as explaining some key concepts in easy terms. You should read these chapters in a linear fashion.

There is a paragraph See also at the end of each section, which contains cross-references to other sections: you should not follow these cross-references at first reading; when you have read all of the Learning Manual, you may want to read some sections again and follow cross-references for further reading.

- Introduction: explains the background and overall goal of LilyPond.
- Tutorial: gives a gentle introduction to typesetting music. First time users should start here.
- Fundamental concepts: explains some general concepts about the LilyPond file format. If you are not certain where to place a command, read this chapter!
- Tweaking output: shows how to change the default engraving that LilyPond produces.
- Working on LilyPond projects: discusses practical uses of LilyPond and how to avoid some common problems. Read this before undertaking large projects!

The Learning Manual also contains appendices which are not part of the recommended linear reading. They may be useful for later viewing:

- Templates: shows ready-made templates of LilyPond pieces. Just cut and paste a template into a file, add notes, and you’re done!
- Scheme tutorial: presents a short introduction to Scheme, the programming language that music functions use. This is material for advanced tweaks; many users never touch Scheme at all.

### About the Music Glossary

Music glossary this explains musical terms, and includes translations to various languages. If you are not familiar with music notation or music terminology (especially if you are a non-native English speaker), it is highly advisable to consult the glossary.

### About the Notation Reference

This book explains all the LilyPond commands which produce notation. It assumes that readers are familiar with the concepts in the Learning Manual.

- Musical notation: discusses topics grouped by notation construct. This section gives details about basic notation that will be useful in almost any notation project.
- Specialist notation: discusses topics grouped by notation construct. This section gives details about special notation that will only be useful for particular instrument (or vocal) groups.
- General input and output: discusses general information about LilyPond input files and controlling output.
- Spacing issues: discusses issues which affect the global output, such as selecting paper size or specifying page breaks.
- Changing defaults: explains how to tweak LilyPond to produce exactly the notation you want.
- Interfaces for programmers: explains how to create music functions with scheme.

The Notation Reference also contains appendices with useful reference charts.

- Literature list: contains a set of useful reference books for those who wish to know more on notation and engraving.
- Notation manual tables: are a set of tables showing the chord names, MIDI instruments, a list of color names, and the Feta font.
- Cheat sheet: is a handy reference of the most common LilyPond commands.
- LilyPond command index: an index of all LilyPond `\commands`.
- LilyPond index: a complete index.

### About the Application Usage

This book explains how to execute the programs and how to integrate LilyPond notation with other programs.

- Install: explains how to install LilyPond, including compilation if desired.
- Setup: describes how to configure your computer for optimum LilyPond usage, such as using special environments for certain text editors.
- Running LilyPond: shows how to run LilyPond and its helper programs. In addition, this section explains how to upgrade input files from previous versions of LilyPond.
- LilyPond-book: explains the details behind creating documents with in-line music examples, like this manual.
- Converting from other formats: explains how to run the conversion programs. These programs are supplied with the LilyPond package, and convert a variety of music formats to the `.ly` format.

### About the Snippet List

LilyPond Snippet List: this shows a selected set of LilyPond snippets from the LilyPond Snippet Repository (LSR). All the snippets are in the public domain.

Please note that this document is not an exact subset of LSR. LSR is running a stable LilyPond version, so any snippet which demonstrates new features of a development version must be added separately. These are stored in ‘`input/new/`’ in the LilyPond source tree.

The list of snippets for each subsection of the Notation Reference are also linked from the See also portion.

### About the Internals Reference

Internals Reference: this is a set of heavily cross linked HTML pages which document the nitty-gritty details of each and every LilyPond class, object, and function. It is produced directly from the formatting definitions in the source code.

Almost all formatting functionality that is used internally is available directly to the user. For example, most variables that control thickness values, distances, etc., can be changed in input files. There are a huge number of formatting options, and all of them are described in this document. Each section of the Notation Reference has a See also subsection, which refers to the generated documentation. In the HTML document, these subsections have clickable links.

### Other documentation

There are a number of other sources of information which may be very valuable.

- News: this is a summary of important changes and new features in LilyPond since the previous version.
- The lilypond-user mailist archives: this is a collection of previous emails sent to the user list. Many questions have been asked multiple times; there is a very good chance that if you have a question, the answer might be found in these archives.
- The lilypond-devel mailist archives: this is a collection of previous emails sent to the developer’s list. The discussion here is more technical; if you have an advanced question about lilypond internals, the answer might be in these archives.
- Embedded music fragments: in all HTML documents that have music fragments embedded, the exact LilyPond input that was used to produce that image can be viewed by clicking the image.
- Init files: the location of the documentation files that are mentioned here can vary from system to system. On occasion, this manual refers to initialization and example files. Throughout this manual, we refer to input files relative to the top-directory of the source archive. For example, ‘`input/lsr/dirname/bla.ly`’ may refer to the file ‘`lilypond2.x.y/input/lsr/dirname/bla.ly`’. On binary packages for the UNIX platform, the documentation and examples can typically be found somewhere below ‘`/usr/share/doc/lilypond/`’. Initialization files, for example ‘`scm/lily.scm`’, or ‘`ly/engraver-init.ly`’, are usually found in the directory ‘`/usr/share/lilypond/`’. For more details, see Other sources of information.

Other languages: français, español, deutsch.

#### Learning Manual