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<h2 class="chapter">5 Changing defaults</h2>
<p><strong>N.B. This Chapter is under heavy development at present.</strong>
<p>The purpose of LilyPond's design is to provide the finest output
quality as a default. Nevertheless, it may happen that you need to
change this default layout. The layout is controlled through a large
number of proverbial ‘knobs and switches.’ This chapter does not
list each and every knob. Rather, it outlines what groups of controls
are available and explains how to lookup which knob to use for a
particular effect.
<p><a name="index-Internals-Reference-2619"></a>
The controls available for tuning are described in a separate
document: <a name="index-Top-2620"></a><a href="../lilypond-internals/index.html#Top">the Internals Reference</a>. That manual
lists all different variables, functions and options available in
LilyPond. It is written as a HTML document, which is available
<!-- leave the @uref as one long line. -->
<a href="http://lilypond.org/doc/stable/Documentation/user/lilypond-internals/">on-line</a>,
but is also included with the LilyPond documentation package.
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<p>There are four areas where the default settings may be changed:
<ul>
<li>Automatic notation: changing the automatic creation of notation
elements. For example, changing the beaming rules.
<li>Output: changing the appearance of individual
objects. For example, changing stem directions or the location of
subscripts.
<li>Context: changing aspects of the translation from music events to
notation. For example, giving each staff a separate time signature.
<li>Page layout: changing the appearance of the spacing, line
breaks, and page dimensions. These modifications are discussed
<!-- in @ref{notation}, and @ref{Spacing issues}. -->
</ul>
<p>Internally, LilyPond uses Scheme (a LISP dialect) to provide
infrastructure. Overriding layout decisions in effect accesses the
program internals, which requires Scheme input. Scheme elements are
introduced in a <code>.ly</code> file with the hash mark
<code>#</code>.<a rel="footnote" href="#fn-1" name="fnd-1"><sup>1</sup></a>
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<li><a accesskey="1" href="Interpretation-contexts.html#Interpretation-contexts">Interpretation contexts</a>
<li><a accesskey="2" href="Explaining-the-Internals-Reference.html#Explaining-the-Internals-Reference">Explaining the Internals Reference</a>
<li><a accesskey="3" href="Modifying-properties.html#Modifying-properties">Modifying properties</a>
<li><a accesskey="4" href="Useful-concepts-and-properties.html#Useful-concepts-and-properties">Useful concepts and properties</a>
<li><a accesskey="5" href="Common-properties.html#Common-properties">Common properties</a>
<li><a accesskey="6" href="Advanced-tweaks.html#Advanced-tweaks">Advanced tweaks</a>
<li><a accesskey="7" href="Discussion-of-specific-tweaks.html#Discussion-of-specific-tweaks">Discussion of specific tweaks</a>
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<div class="footnote">
<hr>
<h4>Footnotes</h4><p class="footnote"><small>[<a name="fn-1" href="#fnd-1">1</a>]</small> <a name="index-Scheme-tutorial-2621"></a><a href="../lilypond-learning/Scheme-tutorial.html#Scheme-tutorial">Scheme tutorial</a>, contains a short tutorial
on entering numbers, lists, strings, and symbols in Scheme.</p>
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