Increasing spacing between staves

Vertical spacing is automatically set so that the layout of a score is neither too cramped or loose. Changing the distance between systems, however, is easy to do. You may want to move systems closer together so that more can fit on the page, for example.

The paper variable that controls the distance between (independent) staves is called system-system-spacing. It provides four keys for fine-tuned control, but you may find that you can get the spacing you want with changes to just one or two. The output of this snippet is the result of a change to a single key, padding. You may want to experiment with the commented-out line below it, which contains the default values for system-system-spacing and shows the syntax to use for changes in groups. Numbers represent distances in staff spaces.

For more details you should consult Section ‘Page layout’ of the Notation Reference.

\version "2.24"

\paper {
  % spacing variables may be changed individually:
  system-system-spacing.padding = #8
  % or as a group:
  %system-system-spacing =
  %  #'((basic-distance . 12)
  %     (minimum-distance . 8)
  %     (padding . 1)
  %     (stretchability . 60)) 
}

\new Staff {
  \repeat unfold 96 { c''8[ c''] } 
}