LilyPond — Changes

This document lists changes and new features in LilyPond version 2.25.3 since 2.24.

Note: LilyPond releases can contain syntax changes, which may require modifications in your existing files written for older versions so that they work in the new version. To upgrade files, it is strongly recommended to use the convert-ly tool distributed with LilyPond, which is described in Updating files with convert-ly. convert-ly can perform almost all syntax updates automatically. Frescobaldi users can run convert-ly directly from Frescobaldi using “Tools > Update with convert-ly…”. Other editing environments with LilyPond support may provide a way to run convert-ly graphically.

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Major changes in LilyPond

Margins are now wider by default following the general layout of several publishers (and the recommendations of Elaine Gould).
Instead of generating PostScript or SVG output by itself, LilyPond can now use the Cairo library to produce its output. This is referred to as the ‘Cairo backend’, and can be turned on using the -dbackend=cairo command-line option. This works for all output formats (PDF, SVG, PNG, PostScript), and brings speed and rendering fidelity improvements in SVG output in particular. However, keep in mind that this backend does not yet implement all features of the default backends. Among the features not currently supported are PDF outlines, the -dembed-source-code option for PDF, and the output-attributes property for SVG.

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New for musical notation

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Pitches improvements

None so far.

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[ < Pitches improvements ]	[ Up : New for musical notation ]	[ Expressive mark improvements > ]

Rhythm improvements

The new option span-all-note-heads may be used to make tuplet brackets span all note heads (not just the stems) as recommended by Gould and Ross.
Using the new printInitialRepeatBar property, it is possible to make a start repeat bar line automatically printed even at the beginning of the piece.

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Expressive mark improvements

Two new variant glyphs for breathing signs are available: ‘laltcomma’ and ‘raltcomma’. These glyphs represent the old shapes of ‘lcomma’ and ‘rcomma’, respectively, before changing them to more common shapes.
```
{
  \override BreathingSign.text =
    \markup { \musicglyph "scripts.raltcomma" }
  f'2 \breathe f' |
}
```

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[ < Expressive mark improvements ]	[ Up : New for musical notation ]	[ Editorial annotation improvements > ]

Repeat improvements

None so far.

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[ < Repeat improvements ]	[ Up : New for musical notation ]	[ Text improvements > ]

Editorial annotation improvements

None so far.

[ << New for musical notation ]	[Top][Contents]	[ New for specialist notation >> ]
[ < Editorial annotation improvements ]	[ Up : New for musical notation ]	[ New for specialist notation > ]

Text improvements

None so far.

[ << New for musical notation ]	[Top][Contents]	[ Miscellaneous improvements >> ]
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New for specialist notation

None so far.

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Miscellaneous improvements

Embedding PNG images is now supported using the new \image markup command. This supplements the existing \epsfile command for EPS images.
\image works for both PNG and EPS images. For EPS images, the difference between using \image and \epsfile is that \image adds a white background by default, while \epsfile does not.
The new \qr-code markup command inserts a QR code of the specified size for the specified URL. This can be used to link to, e.g., the website of a composer or publisher, the LilyPond source files for the score, recordings, etc.
```
\markup \qr-code #10 "https://lilypond.org"
```