musixtex for Debian
-------------------

Dear music lover:

  Welcome to the wonderful world of music typesetting!
  This is the Debian package of MusiXTeX (Daniel Taupin's version).
  Hope you enjoy producing beautiful music scores with MusiXTeX
  and related packages!


GETTING STARTED
===============

To read the MusiXTeX manual:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  * Copy the file /usr/share/doc/musixtex/musixdoc/musixdoc.dvi.gz
    to your favourite directory, gunzip it, then use xdvi or dvisvga
    to view it;

  * If you installed musixtex-doc, you may also find the manual in
    PostScript format (A4, 300dpi) as /usr/share/doc/musixtex/musixdoc.ps.gz
      
  * You might like to generate your own musixdoc.dvi and musixdoc.ps
    to suit your paper size and printer resolution.  For example:
      
        $ mkdir /tmp/musixdoc
        $ cd /tmp/musixdoc
        $ cp /usr/share/doc/musixtex/musixdoc/* /tmp/musixdoc
        $ gunzip *.gz
        $ sh Make_musixdoc

    To print on US Letter (8.5" x 11") paper,
    change the first few lines of musixdoc.sty from:

        \textheight= 50\baselineskip
        \textwidth= 210mm \advance\textwidth-2in %

    to the following (or something similar):

        \textheight= 46\baselineskip
        \textwidth= 8.5in \advance\textwidth-2in %


To compile your MusiXTeX source music score file (*.tex):
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  MusiXTeX is a three-pass system.  It uses an external program called
  musixflex to calculate the spacing of the notes.  To compile your
  MusiXTeX jobname.tex file, you may use:

     musixtex jobname.tex  (This is the little script that I wrote to
                            run TeX ==> musixflex ==> TeX on jobname.tex)

  Or, if you prefer to do it manually, try:

     tex jobname.tex ; musixflx jobname ; tex jobname.tex

  For LaTeX MusiXTeX files, use the following instead if musixtex
  should fail to detect the latex source:

     latex jobname.tex ; musixflx jobname ; latex jobname.tex


MusiXTeX's Helpers and Other Music Typesetting Packages
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  MusiXTeX is designed mainly for music typesetting, not for music notation.
  That is, it lets you control precisely how to typeset a passage, and would
  not make the decision for you.  Because of this power and versatility, it
  t might seems tedious and complicated to input scores, especially for
  beginners.  Don't be scared, it's not difficult to work with MusiXTeX!
  Furthermore, there are some great packages and preprocessors with simple
  syntax that take care of the design decisions for you, great for all
  beginners and experts alike!  ^_^  Saves time too!

    ABC2MTeX -- An easy way of transcribing folk and traditional music
         PMX -- A Preprocessor for MusiXTeX
        M-Tx -- Music from Text, works with PMX and make it easy to add
        lyrics to your music score

  There are also other great music typesetting packages such as SceX,
  OpusTeX (MusiXTeX's twin) and GNU LilyPond.  Check out:

MuTeX Mailing List <mutex@gmd.de>
(music typesetting software discussion list)
To subscribe, go to the GMD Music Archive below:

GMD Music Archive (Lots of music scores and music software!)
http://www.gmd.de/Misc/Music/

GNU LilyPond (and links to the GNU Music Project)
http://www.lilypond.org/

  Many of these great software are now available as Debian packages.
  If you like to help packaging other music software, please do so!  ^_^

Have fun and start making beautiful music scores!  ^_^

Anthony Fok <foka@debian.org>, Wed, 22 Apr 1998 03:51:44 -0600