5.4.8 Rotating objects

Both layout objects and elements of markup text can be rotated by any angle about any point, but the method of doing so differs.


Rotating layout objects

All layout objects which support the grob-interface can be rotated by setting their rotation property. This takes a list of three items: the angle of rotation counter-clockwise, and the x and y coordinates of the point relative to the object’s reference point about which the rotation is to be performed. The angle of rotation is specified in degrees and the coordinates in staff spaces.

The angle of rotation and the coordinates of the rotation point must be determined by trial and error.

There are only a few situations where the rotation of layout objects is useful; the following example shows one situation where they may be:

g4\< e' d'' f''\!
\override Hairpin.rotation = #'(15 -1 0)
g4\< e' d'' f''\!

[image of music]


Rotating markup

All markup text can be rotated to lie at any angle by prefixing it with the \rotate command. The command takes two arguments: the angle of rotation in degrees counter-clockwise and the text to be rotated. The extents of the text are not rotated: they take their values from the extremes of the x and y coordinates of the rotated text. In the following example the outside-staff-priority property for text is set to #f to disable the automatic collision avoidance, which would push some of the text too high.

\override TextScript.outside-staff-priority = ##f
g4^\markup { \rotate #30 "a G" }
b^\markup { \rotate #30 "a B" }
des'^\markup { \rotate #30 "a D-Flat" }
fis'^\markup { \rotate #30 "an F-Sharp" }

[image of music]


LilyPond — Notation Reference v2.24.4 (stable-branch).