LilyPond binaries for MacOS X do not provide Python, but Python 2.4 or newer is required by convert-ly. Therefore, if you use MacOS 10.3 or 10.4, you must install a newer Python version from http://python.org/download/, then edit the first line of convert-ly and lilypond-book as follows: if the Python binary you just installed is in your PATH, the first line should be
#!/usr/bin/env python
otherwise it should be
#!/path/to/newly_installed/python
The scripts — such as lilypond-book, convert-ly,
abc2ly, and even lilypond itself — are included
inside the .app
file for MacOS X. They can be run from
the command line by invoking them directly, e.g.
path/to/LilyPond.app/Contents/Resources/bin/lilypond
The same is true of the other scripts in that directory, including lilypond-book, convert-ly, abc2ly, etc.
Alternatively, you may create scripts which add the path automatically. Create a directory to store these scripts,
mkdir -p ~/bin cd ~/bin
Create a file called lilypond
which contains
exec path/to/LilyPond.app/Contents/Resources/bin/lilypond "$@"
Create similar files lilypond-book
, convert-ly
, and
any other helper programs you use (abc2ly
, midi2ly
,
etc). Simply replace the bin/lilypond
with
bin/convert-ly
(or other program name) in the above file.
Make the file executable,
chmod u+x lilypond
Now, add this directory to your path. Modify (or create)
a file called .profile
in your home directory such that it contains
export PATH=$PATH:~/bin
This file should end with a blank line.
Note that path/to will generally be /Applications/
.