### 4.7 Output details

The default output format is LaTeX, which should be run through LaTeX. Using the option -f (or --format) other output formats can be selected also, but none of them work reliably.

Now the music is output system by system (a `system' is a single line from the score, consisting of staves belonging together). From TeX's point of view, a system is an `\hbox` which contains a lowered `\vbox` so that it is centered vertically on the baseline of the text. Between systems, `\interscoreline` is inserted vertically to have stretchable space. The horizontal dimension of the `\hbox` is given by the `linewidth` parameter from LilyPond's `\paper` block.

After the last system LilyPond emits a stronger variant of `\interscoreline` only if the macro `\lilypondpaperlastpagefill` is not defined (flushing the systems to the top of the page). You can avoid that by setting the variable `lastpagefill` in LilyPond's `\paper` block.

It is possible to fine-tune the vertical offset further by defining the macro `\lilypondscoreshift`:

         \def\lilypondscoreshift{0.25\baselineskip}

where `\baselineskip` is the distance from one text line to the next.

Here an example how to embed a small LilyPond file `foo.ly` into running LaTeX text without using the `lilypond-book` script (see lilypond-book manual):

         \documentclass{article}

         \def\lilypondpaperlastpagefill{}
         \lineskip 5pt
         \def\lilypondscoreshift{0.25\baselineskip}

         \begin{document}
         This is running text which includes an example music file
         \input{foo.tex}
         right here.
         \end{document}

The file foo.tex has been simply produced with

           lilypond-bin foo.ly

The call to `\lineskip` assures that there is enough vertical space between the LilyPond box and the surrounding text lines.

Read comments on this page, or add one. This page is for LilyPond-2.2.5 (stable-branch).