Selecting notation font size - GNU LilyPond
Description: GNU LilyPond

Next: Score layout, Previous: Setting global staff size, Up: Music layout

#### 10.5.2 Selecting notation font size

The easiest method of setting the font size of any context, is by setting the `fontSize` property.

>          c8
>          \set fontSize = #-4
>          c f
>          \set fontSize = #3
>          g

It does not change the size of variable symbols, such as beams or slurs.

Internally, the `fontSize` context property will cause the `font-size` property to be set in all layout objects. The value of `font-size` is a number indicating the size relative to the standard size for the current staff height. Each step up is an increase of approximately 12% of the font size. Six steps is exactly a factor two. The Scheme function `magstep` converts a `font-size` number to a scaling factor.

>          c8
>          \override NoteHead #'font-size = #-4
>          c f
>          \override NoteHead #'font-size = #3
>          g

LilyPond has fonts in different design sizes. The music fonts for smaller sizes are chubbier, while the text fonts are relatively wider. Font size changes are achieved by scaling the design size that is closest to the desired size. The standard font size (for `font-size` equals 0), depends on the standard staff height. For a 20pt staff, a 10pt font is selected.

The `font-size` property can only be set on layout objects that use fonts. These are the ones supporting the font-interface layout interface.

##### Predefined commands

The following commands set `fontSize` for the current voice:

`\tiny`, `\small`, `\normalsize`.

This page is for LilyPond-2.8.8 (stable-branch).

Other languages: English.
Using automatic language selection.