LilyPond — Changes
******************

This document lists changes and new features in LilyPond version 2.25.2
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 *note
          (lilypond-usage)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.

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.

New for musical notation
************************

Pitches improvements
====================

None so far.

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.

[[image of music]]

   • Using the new ‘printInitialRepeatBar’ property, it is possible to
     make a start repeat bar line automatically printed even at the
     beginning of the piece.

[[image of music]]

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' |
          }
[[image of music]]

Repeat improvements
===================

None so far.

Editorial annotation improvements
=================================

None so far.

Text improvements
=================

None so far.

New for specialist notation
***************************

None so far.

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.

