Yesterday, thanks to Kieren, I learned about the snippet Magnetic lyrics <https://wiki.lilypond.community/wiki/Magnetic_lyrics:_snap_syllables_together_if_the_hyphen_inbetween_is_too_short> .
Today I turned on magnetic lyrics in my composition work. I love what it’s doing to the output! Lots of syllables are pleasingly merged or “snapped” together, so my work looks noticeably more like a traditional, manually engraved edition. Many thanks to Jean and Werner. But then I thought about the issue that we discussed a couple of weeks ago — link below — about (i) true orthographical hyphens in lyrics, as opposed to (ii) “musical” hyphens that appear only where (and because) the text is set to music. That issue has reared its head again. 🙂 [image: image.png] % Lyrics for bottom line: well -- be -- lov -- ed __ Son The problem above: Some kind of hyphen must appear between “well” and “be” because there is a true orthographical hyphen in that word. I think I figured out the solution as follows. Is the below the correct/best way to undo magnetic lyrics locally (i.e., revert to normal LilyPond behaviour)? [image: image.png] % See https://lilypond.org/doc/v2.27/Documentation/internals/lyrichyphen \once \override LyricHyphen.minimum-distance = #0.8 % The 0.8 is the sum of LilyPond’s % default length 0.66 and 2 * [0.07 default padding] well -- \once \override LyricText.details.squash-threshold = #0 be -- lov -- ed __ Son For a MWE that compiles, one can take the code from the Wiki snippet <https://wiki.lilypond.community/wiki/Magnetic_lyrics:_snap_syllables_together_if_the_hyphen_inbetween_is_too_short> and do: \addlyrics { \once \override LyricHyphen.minimum-distance = #0.8 suf -- \once \override LyricText.details.squash-threshold = #0 fice baff -- ling car -- fuff -- ling } On Thu, 30 Apr 2026, Gabriel Ellsworth wrote: > Here is the source text that I am setting: > >> and hast promised through thy well-beloved Son > > Source: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-user/2026-04/msg00211.html
