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Spacing of non-staff lines

Non-staff lines (such as Lyrics, ChordNames, etc.) are contexts whose layout objects are engraved like staves (i.e., in horizontal lines within systems). Specifically, non-staff lines are non-staff contexts that contain the Axis_group_engraver.

The following properties affect the spacing of non-staff lines:

• VerticalAxisGroup properties:
  • staff-affinity
  • nonstaff-relatedstaff-spacing
  • nonstaff-nonstaff-spacing
  • nonstaff-unrelatedstaff-spacing

These grob properties are described individually above; see Within-system spacing properties.

The following example shows how the nonstaff-nonstaff-spacing property can affect the spacing of consecutive non-staff lines. Here, by setting the stretchability key to a very high value, the lyrics are able to stretch much more than usual:

\layout {
  \context {
    \Lyrics
    \override VerticalAxisGroup
              .nonstaff-nonstaff-spacing
              .stretchability = 1000
  }
}

\new StaffGroup
<<
  \new Staff \with {
    \override VerticalAxisGroup.staff-staff-spacing =
      #'((basic-distance . 30))
  } { c'1 }
  \new Lyrics \with {
    \override VerticalAxisGroup.staff-affinity = #UP
  } \lyricmode { up }
  \new Lyrics \with {
    \override VerticalAxisGroup.staff-affinity = #CENTER
  } \lyricmode { center }
  \new Lyrics \with {
    \override VerticalAxisGroup.staff-affinity = #DOWN
  } \lyricmode { down }
  \new Staff { c'1 }
>>

See also

Installed Files: ly/engraver-init.ly, scm/define-grobs.scm.

Snippets: Spacing.

Internals Reference: Contexts, VerticalAxisGroup.