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<p>
<a name="Line-breaking"></a>
Next: <a rel="next" accesskey="n" href="Page-breaking.html#Page-breaking">Page breaking</a>,
Up: <a rel="up" accesskey="u" href="Breaks.html#Breaks">Breaks</a>
<hr>
</div>
<h4 class="subsection">4.3.1 Line breaking</h4>
<p><a name="index-line-breaks-2537"></a><a name="index-breaking-lines-2538"></a>
Line breaks are normally determined automatically. They are chosen
so that lines look neither cramped nor loose, and consecutive
lines have similar density. Occasionally you might want to
override the automatic breaks; you can do this by specifying
<code>\break</code>. This will force a line break at this point. However,
line breaks can only occur at the end of ‘complete’ bars, i.e.,
where there are no notes or tuplets left ‘hanging’ over the bar
line. If you want to have a line break where there is no bar line,
you can force an invisible bar line by entering <code>\bar ""</code>,
although again there must be no notes left hanging over in any of
the staves at this point, or it will be ignored.
<p>The opposite command, <code>\noBreak</code>, forbids a line break at the
bar line where it is inserted.
<p>The most basic settings influencing line spacing are <code>indent</code>
and <code>line-width</code>. They are set in the <code>\layout</code> block.
They control the indentation of the first line of music, and the
lengths of the lines.
<p>If <code>ragged-right</code> is set to true in the <code>\layout</code> block,
then systems end at their natural horizontal length, instead of
being spread horizontally to fill the whole line. This is useful
for short fragments, and for checking how tight the natural
spacing is.
<!-- TODO Check and add para on default for ragged-right -->
<p>The option <code>ragged-last</code> is similar to <code>ragged-right</code>,
but affects only the last line of the piece.
<pre class="example">\layout {
indent = #0
line-width = #150
ragged-last = ##t
}
</pre>
<p><a name="index-regular-line-breaks-2539"></a><a name="index-four-bar-music_002e-2540"></a>
For line breaks at regular intervals use <code>\break</code> separated by
skips and repeated with <code>\repeat</code>. For example, this would
cause the following 28 measures (assuming 4/4 time) to be broken
every 4 measures, and only there:
<pre class="example"><< \repeat unfold 7 {
s1 \noBreak s1 \noBreak
s1 \noBreak s1 \break }
<em>the real music</em>
>>
</pre>
<p class="noindent">
<h5 class="subsubheading">Predefined commands</h5>
<p><code>\break</code>, and <code>\noBreak</code>.
<a name="index-g_t_005cbreak-2541"></a><a name="index-g_t_005cbreak-2542"></a>
<a name="index-g_t_005cnoBreak-2543"></a><a name="index-g_t_005cnoBreak-2544"></a>
<p class="noindent">
<h5 class="subsubheading">See also</h5>
<p class="indent">
<p>Internals: <a name="index-LineBreakEvent-2545"></a><a href="../lilypond-internals/LineBreakEvent.html#LineBreakEvent">LineBreakEvent</a>.
<!-- TODO Check this -->
<p>A linebreaking configuration can be saved as a <code>.ly</code> file
automatically. This allows vertical alignments to be stretched to
fit pages in a second formatting run. This is fairly new and
complicated. More details are available in
<a href="../../../input/lsr/lilypond-snippets/Spacing.html#Spacing">Spacing</a>.
<p class="noindent">
<h5 class="subsubheading">Known issues and warnings</h5>
<p>Line breaks can only occur if there is a ‘proper’ bar line. A note
which is hanging over a bar line is not proper, such as
<blockquote>
<pre class="verbatim">
c4 c2 << c2 {s4 \break } >> % this does nothing
c2 c4 | % a break here would work
c4 c2 c4 ~ \break % as does this break
c4 c2 c4
</pre>
<p>
<a href="../17/lily-b681f25a.ly">
<img align="middle"
border="0" src="../17/lily-b681f25a.png" alt="[image of music]">
</a>
</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This can be avoided by removing the <code>Forbid_line_break_engraver</code>.
Note that manually forced line breaks have to be added in parallel
with the music.
<blockquote>
<pre class="verbatim">
\new Voice \with {
\remove Forbid_line_break_engraver
} {
c4 c2 << c2 {s4 \break } >> % now the break is allowed
c2 c4
}
</pre>
<p>
<a href="../5c/lily-a2e88f71.ly">
<img align="middle"
border="0" src="../5c/lily-a2e88f71.png" alt="[image of music]">
</a>
</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Similarly, line breaks are normally forbidden when beams cross bar
lines. This behavior can be changed by setting
<code>\override Beam #'breakable = ##t</code>.
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<p>
Next: <a rel="next" accesskey="n" href="Page-breaking.html#Page-breaking">Page breaking</a>,
Up: <a rel="up" accesskey="u" href="Breaks.html#Breaks">Breaks</a>
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