Dear Eric, On Sat, 27 Jun 2026, Eric Benson wrote:
> I would like to find a way for LilyPond to balance the pages when it does > automatic page breaking. That is, if a score is, say, 9 systems long, I > would like to put 5 systems on one page and 4 systems on the other page, > rather than 8 and 1 as it does now if I don't intervene. > Here is one approach. It is not perfect, but it’s one possibility. Note that per 26.1 The \paper block (LilyPond Notation Reference) <https://lilypond.org/doc/v2.27/Documentation/notation/the-paper-block>: > A \paper block cannot be placed within a \score block. But if each of your scores starts at the top of a new page, then this won’t be a problem for you. In actual practice, for larger, more complex scores, I typically control my page breaks manually using a separate breaks variable, rather than using the below approach. I can share an example of that, too, if it’s of interest. Gabriel \version "2.27.1" music = \fixed c' { e b d a } \bookpart { \markup { By default, this score renders as 13 systems on first page and 1 system on second page: } \score { \*100 \music } } \bookpart { \markup { Let’s make it 7 and 7 instead in this new bookpart: } \paper { max-systems-per-page = 7 } \score { \*100 \music } } \bookpart { \markup { Let’s make it 8 and 8 instead in this third bookpart: } \paper { systems-per-page = 8 } \score { \*100 \music } }
