<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> <!-- header_tag --> <html lang="en"> <head> <title>How to read the manual - GNU LilyPond Learning Manual</title> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"> <meta name="description" content="GNU LilyPond Learning Manual"> <meta name="generator" content="makeinfo 4.11"> <link title="Top" rel="start" href="index.html#Top"> <link rel="up" href="First-steps.html#First-steps" title="First steps"> <link rel="prev" href="Working-on-input-files.html#Working-on-input-files" title="Working on input files"> <link href="http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/" rel="generator-home" title="Texinfo Homepage"> <!-- Copyright (C) 1999--2007 by the authors Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections. 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For the rest of this manual, most examples will omit this. To replicate the examples, you may copy and paste the displayed input, but you <strong>must</strong> add the <code>\relative c'' { }</code><!-- /@w --> like this: <pre class="example">\relative c'' { ... example goes here... } </pre> <p>Why omit the braces? Most examples in this manual can be inserted into the middle of a longer piece of music. For these examples, it does not make sense to add <code>\relative c'' { }</code><!-- /@w --> – you should not place a <code>\relative</code> inside another <code>\relative</code>! If we included <code>\relative c'' { }</code><!-- /@w --> around every example, you would not be able to copy a small documentation example and paste it inside a longer piece of your own. Most people want to add material to an existing piece, so we format the manual this way. <h4 class="subheading">Clickable examples</h4> <p>Many people learn programs by trying and fiddling around with the program. This is also possible with LilyPond. If you click on a picture in the HTML version of this manual, you will see the exact LilyPond input that was used to generate that image. Try it on this image: <!-- no verbatim here --> <blockquote> <p> <a href="../51/lily-f6216c7b.ly"> <img align="middle" border="0" src="../51/lily-f6216c7b.png" alt="[image of music]"> </a> </p> </blockquote> <p>By cutting and pasting everything in the “ly snippet” section, you have a starting template for experiments. To see exactly the same output (line-width and all), copy everything from “Start cut-&-pastable section” to the bottom of the file. <p class="noindent"> <h5 class="subsubheading">See also</h5> <p class="indent"> <p>There are more tips for constructing input files in <a href="Suggestions-for-writing-LilyPond-input-files.html#Suggestions-for-writing-LilyPond-input-files">Suggestions for writing LilyPond input files</a>. But it might be best to read through the rest of the tutorial first. <!-- footer_tag --><br><hr> <div class="node"> <p> Previous: <a rel="previous" accesskey="p" href="Working-on-input-files.html#Working-on-input-files">Working on input files</a>, Up: <a rel="up" accesskey="u" href="First-steps.html#First-steps">First steps</a> </div> <div style="background-color: #e8ffe8; padding: 2; border: #c0ffc0 1px solid;"> <p> <font size="-1"> This page is for LilyPond-2.11.57 (development-branch). <br> <address> Report errors to <a href="http://post.gmane.org/post.php?group=gmane.comp.gnu.lilypond.bugs">http://post.gmane.org/post.php?group=gmane.comp.gnu.lilypond.bugs</a>. </address> <br> Your <a href="http://lilypond.org/web/devel/participating/documentation-adding">suggestions for the documentation</a> are welcome. </font> </p> </div> <P> Other languages: <a href="How-to-read-the-manual.fr.html">français</a>, <a href="How-to-read-the-manual.es.html">español</a>, <a href="How-to-read-the-manual.de.html">deutsch</a>. <BR> </P> </BODY></html>