Grab,

Thanks for reminding me about Denemo. I checked my system and realized I downloaded the current version (0.6.0) last November but haven't made the time to install it to see what it can do.

I have, and occasionally use, the GNU LilyPond package needed in order to use Denemo. LilyPond seems to be the best option for producing a complete music book—music, lyrics, descriptive text, table of contents, index, etc.— and is much easier to use than native MusixTeX. Be warned, however, that you must have a working TeX system installed (with MusicTex) in order to use GNU LilyPond and Denemo.

All of this is founded upon TeX, the wonderful typesetting system created by Donald Knuth and placed in the public domain. TeX and Leslie Lamport's LaTeX macro package, have revolutionized the world of publishing and typesetting. If you're not familiar with TeX, be warned that it isn't a WYSISYG system. TeX users like to think of it as WYSISYM (what you see is what you meant) and is capable of producing much better looking output than a word processor.

There are Windows implementations of TeX available but the one I like best is the teTeX implementation that comes with a complete Cygwin installation. Cygwin is a POSOX/UNIX API for Windows that includes the Bourne again shell (BASH) and nearly all of the GNU software you'd expect in a Linux system. Cygwin lets you run all of this over Windows without needing two operating systems or rebooting your machine to use it. At the same time, there is no need to sacrifice all that UNIX functionality in order to run in Windows.

Keep in mind that TeX/LaTeX/MusixTeX/LilyPond is a very powerful and freely available solution for music publishing but it's probably best reserved for serious propeller heads. Just configuring the software to run at all may be beyond the technical abilities of the average PC user.

Still, if you've got plenty of time and are a patient person, the eventual system will be well worth effort. There is a great deal of music available on the Web in LilyPond notation and I'm guessing that Denemo is able to edit those files directly.

If you decide to try Denemo/LilyPond/MusicTeX/LaTeX/TeX I'd like to know how it worked for you. Please let me know.

      - Mark