This is the toplevel README to LilyPond
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LilyPond is a music typesetter.  It produces beautiful sheet music using a high level description file as input.  LilyPond is part of the GNU Project.

Versioning
==========

LilyPond uses a versioning scheme similar to the Linux kernel.  In a version "x.y.z", an even second number 'y' denotes a stable version. For development versions 'y' is odd.

Version 1.4 is the latest stable release.

Compilation
===========

For compiling and running LilyPond please refer to the installation instructions.  These instructions can be found when you unpack lilypond, as lilypond-x.y.z/INSTALL.txt.

NOTE: If you downloaded a binary (.rpm or a W95/NT .zip file), you don't have to compile LilyPond.

Documentation
=============

The documentation is available online at http://www.lilypond.org/.  You can also build it locally. This does require a working LilyPond binary.  The following formats are supported:

  * HTML. Refer to INSTALL.txt for information on how to make the HTML documentation.

  * .dvi,  for the tutorial and reference manual. Do

           make -C Documentation/user/ dvi

     The printable documentation is left in Documentation/user/out/.

  * paper. Create the .dvi documentation, and print it with dvips.

Comments
========

LilyPond is a long way from finished and polished, so we please send your criticism, comments, bugreports, patches, etc., to the mailing list.  and not to us personally.

We have the following mailing lists:

  * info-gnu-music@gnu.org (http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/info-gnu-music) is a low-volume list for information on the GNU Music project. This list is moderated; ask David R. Linn or Han-Wen to send announcements for this list.

  * gnu-music-discuss@gnu.org (http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-music-discuss) For general discussions concerning LilyPond.

  * help-gnu-music@gnu.org (http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-gnu-music) For help with using LilyPond.

  * bug-gnu-music@gnu.org (http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-gnu-music) If you have bugreports, you should send them to this list.

Windows 32
==========

If you have received this file as part of a DOS/Window32 distribution (LilyPond-*.zip), it is advisable to also download the source package (ftp://ftp.cs.uu.nl/pub/GNU/LilyPond/), since it might contain more documentation

Caveats
=======

If you have installed a previous version, be sure to remove old font files, eg.,

     rm `find /var/lib/texmf/fonts -name 'feta*'`

a script to do this for you is in buildscripts/clean-fonts.sh

Bugs
====

Send bug reports to bug-gnu-music@gnu.org.  For help and questions use help-gnu-music@gnu.org and gnu-music-discuss@gnu.org.  Please consult the FAQ and installation instructions before mailing your problems.