Creating PDFs, Word Docs and Other Files

Anything you want to keep, print or send to somebody is made from the 📄 Files menu on a song page. At the bottom of the 📄 Files dropdown is a Save Settings button so you can do a change once use many approach.

What you choose depends on what you want to end up with. A PDF for printing and sharing. A Word document if you want to change it afterwards. Plain text or an image for anything else.

The quickest way: a PDF that already exists

All songs loaded on the site already have a PDF built and waiting, made to the site's standard layout. The PDF can be accessed in the Files menu

Existing Songbook PDF — the full song with chords.

Existing Lyrics PDF — the words on their own.

Both download immediately with no waiting, because there is nothing to build.

💡 Handy hint: These use the standard layout, not your own settings. If you have changed the font size, the key or the instrument and you want that in the file, make a new one instead.

Making a PDF your way

Create New PDF builds a fresh PDF using whatever you currently have on screen. That includes your instrument and key, your font size, line spacing and header size from Settings, the size and position of the chord diagrams, and left handed diagrams if you use them.

Create Lyrics PDF does the same with the words only, no chord names and no diagrams.

A Word document you can edit

Create Word .docx makes a document you can open in Microsoft Word, LibreOffice, Google Docs or anything similar, and change however you like.

It includes the words with the chord names above them or inline, the chord diagrams as pictures, and your current font and spacing.

💡 Handy hint: You need to be logged in to create Word documents.

Plain text and images

Create Song TXT — the whole song as plain text, with the chord names in ChordPro brackets. This is the format to use if you want the song in another app.

Create Lyrics TXT — the words only, as plain text.

Create Image of Song — the song as a PNG picture.

Layout options for PDFs

At the bottom of the Files menu are tick boxes that change how the PDF comes out. They are worth knowing about, because most of them exist to solve the same problem: a song that will not fit on one sheet.

Squeezing a song onto one page

Fit To Page — shrinks the whole song to fit, down to 85% of full size. That buys you roughly eight to ten lines at normal font size. Be aware it makes the text smaller and the right margin look wider.
Reduce empty space at top — closes the large gap above the title.
Remove max blank space — tightens the spacing throughout.
Remove Section Headings — takes out the section labels such as CHORUS.
Remove Links in PDF — takes out the links such as links to YouTube.
Remove Tabs in PDF — takes out the tabs in PDFs.

Margins for folders and binders

Wide left margin — extra room down the left, so a hole punch does not go through the words.
Wider left margin — more again.

Songs that run to several pages

Number pages — adds page numbers.
Put title in header line — repeats the song title at the top of every page.
Show chords after new page — repeats the chord diagrams at the top of each page after the first, so you are not flipping back.

Other

Print in landscape — turns the page sideways.
Compress PDF after Creating — takes about a second and makes the file roughly 40% smaller. Ticked to start with, and worth leaving on.

For Word documents only

Fit chord diagrams in one row — packs as many diagrams as will go into a single row across the top.

💡 Handy hint: Try the gentler options before Fit To Page. Reducing the empty space at the top and removing section headings often gains you enough on their own, and they leave the text at full size.

Gathering songs into a songbook

To put several songs into one PDF, go to Favourites and use Create Songbook or Create Lyrics Songbook.