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<p>
<a name="Horizontal-spacing-overview"></a>
Next: <a rel="next" accesskey="n" href="New-spacing-area.fr.html#New-spacing-area">New spacing area</a>,
Up: <a rel="up" accesskey="u" href="Horizontal-spacing.fr.html#Horizontal-spacing">Horizontal spacing</a>
<hr>
</div>
<h4 class="subsection">4.5.1 Horizontal spacing overview</h4>
<p>The spacing engine translates differences in durations into stretchable
distances (‘springs’) of differing lengths. Longer durations get
more space, shorter durations get less. The shortest durations get a
fixed amount of space (which is controlled by
<code>shortest-duration-space</code> in the <a name="index-SpacingSpanner-2585"></a><a href="../lilypond-internals/SpacingSpanner.fr.html#SpacingSpanner">SpacingSpanner</a>
object). The longer the duration, the more space it gets: doubling a
duration adds a fixed amount (this amount is controlled by
<code>spacing-increment</code>) of space to the note.
<p>For example, the following piece contains lots of half, quarter, and
8th notes; the eighth note is followed by 1 note head width (NHW).
The quarter note is followed by 2 NHW, the half by 3 NHW, etc.
<blockquote>
<pre class="verbatim">
c2 c4. c8 c4. c8 c4. c8 c8
c8 c4 c4 c4
</pre>
<p>
<a href="../50/lily-59b87e17.ly">
<img align="middle"
border="0" src="../50/lily-59b87e17.png" alt="[image of music]">
</a>
</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Normally, <code>spacing-increment</code> is set to 1.2 staff space, which is
approximately the width of a note head, and
<code>shortest-duration-space</code> is set to 2.0, meaning that the
shortest note gets 2.4 staff space (2.0 times the
<code>spacing-increment</code>) of horizontal space. This space is counted
from the left edge of the symbol, so the shortest notes are generally
followed by one NHW of space.
<p>If one would follow the above procedure exactly, then adding a single
32nd note to a score that uses 8th and 16th notes, would widen up the
entire score a lot. The shortest note is no longer a 16th, but a 32nd,
thus adding 1 NHW to every note. To prevent this, the shortest
duration for spacing is not the shortest note in the score, but rather
the one which occurs most frequently.
<p>The most common shortest duration is determined as follows: in every
measure, the shortest duration is determined. The most common shortest
duration is taken as the basis for the spacing, with the stipulation
that this shortest duration should always be equal to or shorter than
an 8th note. The shortest duration is printed when you run
<code>lilypond</code> with the <code>--verbose</code> option.
<p>These durations may also be customized. If you set the
<code>common-shortest-duration</code> in <a name="index-SpacingSpanner-2586"></a><a href="../lilypond-internals/SpacingSpanner.fr.html#SpacingSpanner">SpacingSpanner</a>, then
this sets the base duration for spacing. The maximum duration for this
base (normally an 8th), is set through <code>base-shortest-duration</code>.
<p><a name="index-common_002dshortest_002dduration-2587"></a><a name="index-common_002dshortest_002dduration-2588"></a>
<a name="index-base_002dshortest_002dduration-2589"></a><a name="index-base_002dshortest_002dduration-2590"></a>
<a name="index-stem_002dspacing_002dcorrection-2591"></a><a name="index-stem_002dspacing_002dcorrection-2592"></a>
<a name="index-spacing-2593"></a><a name="index-spacing-2594"></a>
<p>Notes that are even shorter than the common shortest note are
followed by a space that is proportional to their duration relative to
the common shortest note. So if we were to add only a few 16th notes
to the example above, they would be followed by half a NHW:
<blockquote>
<pre class="verbatim">
c2 c4. c8 c4. c16[ c] c4. c8 c8 c8 c4 c4 c4
</pre>
<p>
<a href="../cc/lily-11c1639b.ly">
<img align="middle"
border="0" src="../cc/lily-11c1639b.png" alt="[image of music]">
</a>
</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In the introduction (see <a name="index-Engraving-2595"></a><a href="../lilypond-learning/Engraving.fr.html#Engraving">Engraving</a>), it was explained that stem
directions influence spacing. This is controlled with the
<code>stem-spacing-correction</code> property in the
<a name="index-NoteSpacing-2596"></a><a href="../lilypond-internals/NoteSpacing.fr.html#NoteSpacing">NoteSpacing</a>, object. These are generated for every
<a name="index-Voice-2597"></a><a href="../lilypond-internals/Voice.fr.html#Voice">Voice</a> context. The <code>StaffSpacing</code> object
(generated in <a name="index-Staff-2598"></a><a href="../lilypond-internals/Staff.fr.html#Staff">Staff</a> context) contains the same property
for controlling the stem/bar line spacing. The following example shows
these corrections, once with default settings, and once with
exaggerated corrections:
<blockquote>
<p>
<a href="../ec/lily-645a1755.ly">
<img align="middle"
border="0" src="../ec/lily-645a1755.png" alt="[image of music]">
</a>
</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Proportional notation is supported; see <a href="Proportional-notation.fr.html#Proportional-notation">Proportional notation</a>.
<p class="noindent">
<h5 class="subsubheading">See also</h5>
<p class="indent">
<p>Internals: <a name="index-SpacingSpanner-2599"></a><a href="../lilypond-internals/SpacingSpanner.fr.html#SpacingSpanner">SpacingSpanner</a>, <a name="index-NoteSpacing-2600"></a><a href="../lilypond-internals/NoteSpacing.fr.html#NoteSpacing">NoteSpacing</a>,
<a name="index-StaffSpacing-2601"></a><a href="../lilypond-internals/StaffSpacing.fr.html#StaffSpacing">StaffSpacing</a>, and <a name="index-SeparationItem-2602"></a><a href="../lilypond-internals/SeparationItem.fr.html#SeparationItem">SeparationItem</a>.
<p class="noindent">
<h5 class="subsubheading">Known issues and warnings</h5>
<p>There is no convenient mechanism to manually override spacing. The
following work-around may be used to insert extra space into a score.
<pre class="example"> \once \override Score.SeparationItem #'padding = #1
</pre>
<p>No work-around exists for decreasing the amount of space.
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