Alternative to lilypond-book for lualatex

Copy all lyluatex*.sty and lyluatex*.lua files into the folder containing the document you wish to typeset.

Just run this command:

tlmgr install lyluatex

Copy all lyluatex*.sty and lyluatex*.lua files from this repository into your texmf tree, then run mktexlsr.

In the preable of your document, include the package lyluatex:

\usepackage{lyluatex}

The program option permits the definition of an alternative path to lilypond, for example:

\usepackage[program=/opt/lilypond-dev/lilypond]{lyluatex}

Thereafter, you can include a lilypond file with the command:

\lilypondfile[staffsize=17]{PATH/TO/THE/FILE}

The argument staffsize, which is optional, changes the size of the score. You can change the size for all the subsequent scores in a document by placing the following command before your first include statement to be so affected:

\setluaoption{ly}{staffsize}{24}

Next, you simply need to compile the document normally with the command lualatex -shell-escape:

lualatex -shell-escape DOCUMENT.TEX

Another "more secure" option is to add lilypond and gs to default allowed commands:

shell_escape_commands=$(kpsewhich -expand-var '$shell_escape_commands'),lilypond,gs lualatex DOCUMENT.TEX

On systems with low RAM, when working on big documents, you could encounter buffer overflows in lilypond calls. In that case, first compile with luatex's command line option --draftmode to generate all LilyPond output snippets, then compile again without this option to generate the output PDF.

You can also input music directly into your document with the lilypond environment. This is only recommended for relatively short snippets. For example:

\begin{lilypond}
\relative c' { c d e f g a b c }
\end{lilypond}

Finally, for truly short snippets, there is also the \lily command. Example:

\lilypond[staffsize=12]{c' d' g'}

Nota bene: The \lilypond command does not support blocks of LilyPond code with explicit \score blocks. Such code must be included with the lilypond environment or as a separate file.

In order to facilitate the migration from lilypond-book, \lilypondfile, the environment lilypond and the command \lilypond should work nearly as with lilypond-book; for even more identical behaviour, call lyluatex as follows:

\usepackage[program=/opt/lilypond-dev/lilypond]{lyluatex}

That way, documents typeset with lilypond-book can be adapted to use lyluatex without much difficulty.

The main author doesn’t use MiKTeX, and won’t make any effort to support it. Nevertheless, pull requests in order to support it will be taken in account.

Actually, lyluatex works with MiKTeX with LilyPond 2.22: there’s a known bug with LilyPond 2.24: #301.

See Contributors.md.

If you want improvements or encounter an error, do not hesitate to to report the issue. If you have programming skills, you may also propose your changes via a pull request.

This extension is and will remain free; if you find it useful and wish to encourage its development by a donation, many thanks!