Hi, Matthias-- You wrote
>... > So do I get you right that Ae does not only make the space between the > systems equal, but also tries to spread the systems equally over the page, > i.e. tries to fill the whole page (if some threshold, how full the page has to > be, is passed)? No, not exactly. Ae itself doesn't TRY to spread the systems over the full page height. But (evidently) when I designed it, I assumed there were enough staves on the page to put you in "category two", i.e., where the DEFAULT is to spread the systems roughly equally over the full page height. I don't think I even considered the effect of Ae on "category one" pages where by default the systems would be grouped toward the top. If you have few enough systems to put you in category one by default, but you would rather have those systems spread (more-or-less) equally over the full height, use Av, whose purpose is to cancel out the grouping of systems toward the top of the page, and essentially to put you in category two. Since we've gotten so far into this, let me repeat a paragraph from the PMX manual, which explains why I really concocted Ae, and also why the default in category two does not necessarily give EXACTLY equal vertical spacing between systems: "MusiXTEX normally draws a virtual box around each system and inserts equal vertical space between boxes. When objects protrude above the top staff in a system or below the bottom one, this can lead to unequal spacing between the top staff line in one system and the next. If you prefer that the vertical spacing between the staves of consecutive systems be constant for the whole page, use the e option of the A command. One side benefit of Ae is that it will prevent systems from spilling over onto extra pages, regardless of how many systems are put on the page. When using this option, you may occasionally want to force more vertical space between certain systems. There is a TEX macro \spread that can be inserted anywhere in the system before the desired wider gap. It has one argument, the desired extra space in \internotes." Now to review what I earlier tried to explain, if you're in category one and want to continue to group systems near the top of the page, then (1) Ae is not recommended, (2) \spread still works to change inter-system spacing, but (3) AI does not work (to change inter-staff spacing). I had said I may look into (3), and I may do that. But in the meantime, I just discovered a roundabout PMX-only way to control both the inter-system and inter-staff spacing in category one. It uses a recent new command (PMX 2.84) AV, which inserts hard vertical space before and after the next page eject. So you could (1) use Av (which puts you in category 2), (2) use AV+20+0 (for example) to insert 20 \Internote vertical space before the page eject, (3) use AI.7 for example to reduce the inter-staff spacing. By adjusting the arguments of AV and AI, you could get any combination of inter-staff and inter-system spacing you want. And you can also use Ae to force exactly equal inter-system spaces. --Don ------------------------------- [email protected] mailing list If you want to unsubscribe or look at the archives, go to http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/tex-music
