Text spanners - GNU LilyPond
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#### 8.1.2 Text spanners

Some performance indications, e.g., rallentando or accelerando, are written as text and are extended over many measures with dotted lines. Such texts are created using text spanners; attach `\startTextSpan` and `\stopTextSpan` to the first and last notes of the spanner.

The string to be printed, as well as the style, is set through object properties

>          c1
>          \textSpannerDown
>          \override TextSpanner #'edge-text = #'("rall " . "")
>          c2\startTextSpan b c\stopTextSpan a
>          \break
>          \textSpannerUp
>          \override TextSpanner #'edge-text = #(cons (markup #:italic "rit" ) "")
>          c2\startTextSpan b c\stopTextSpan a

##### Predefined commands

`textSpannerUp`, `textSpannerDown`, `textSpannerNeutral`.

##### Commonly tweaked properties

To print a solid line, use

    \override TextSpanner #'dash-fraction = #'()

##### See also

Program reference: TextSpanner.

Examples: `input/regression/text-spanner.ly`.

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

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