Stop Lilypond from generating multiple files

Question

I am not sure if this is the right place to ask, but it seems like a lot of people are using Lilypond here.

Every time I compile a .ly file using lilypond for Windows10 it generates too many files. It outputs a pdf for the whole piece (which is what I need), and a separate pdf for each line of the piece + a .eps file for each one of those pdfs + some additional .count and .tex files.

I have tried compiling both using cmd and double clicking on the .ly file. On command line, I have tried adding --pdf, --loglevel=NONE, --output=FILE, -fpdf, -dno-print-pages and -dprint-pages, but nothing seems to help.

You sure there's nothing in the user manual about "print full score only" argument? — Carl Witthoft, Jun 27 '19 at 12:59
Possible duplicate of Is there a way in Lilypond to omit entire staffs from the pdf layout but listen to them in MIDI? — Carl Witthoft, Jun 27 '19 at 13:05
Also probably helpful: http://lilypond.org/doc/v2.19/Documentation/learning/string-quartet-parts But in any case, the PDFs can't come into existence without the .count, .tex,. .eps as those are byproducts of the applications "behind the scenes" — Carl Witthoft, Jun 27 '19 at 13:11
That doesn't happen by default. Did you use something like lilypond-book-preamble.ly? — Jean Abou Samra, Feb 13 '23 at 11:00
Re "But in any case, the PDFs can't come into existence without the .count, .tex,. .eps as those are byproducts of the applications behind the scenes": sorry, this is just wrong. LilyPond does not create such files by default. — Jean Abou Samra, Feb 13 '23 at 11:01

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 07 '23 at 22:23

If the -o option is generating multiple files, you can try the following command to explicitly specify the format of the output file:

lilypond -dbackend=pdf -o outputfile.pdf inputfile.ly

This will generate a single PDF file named outputfile.pdf from the input file inputfile.ly. The -dbackend=pdf option sets the backend format to PDF.

Stop Lilypond from generating multiple files

1 Answers1