Songbook Wizard - Documentation

The documentation is currently under development. Please check out the examples in the meantime to find out more details about the Songbook Wizard syntax. Large portions of this documentation have been kindly provided by Stephen Peringer. Thanks!

Songbook Wizard - Documentation - 0 - Introduction

The Songbook Wizard is a website that helps you quickly create beautiful, easy-to-read guitar songsheets including standard chord diagrams without doing any formatting yourself. You just tell the Songbook Wizard the information about your song, and it will produce an Adobe PDF document with the click of one button. The following sections outline the simple method for giving the song information to Songbook Wizard in a way it will understand.

Songbook Wizard - Documentation - 1 - An Example

Let's start by analyzing the song 1992 of the Britpop band Blur. This is an example of a complete songbook wizard sheet before it is turned into a PDF:

<header>
title = 1992
artist = Blur
subtitle = From the 1999 album 13
</header>

<chords>
Am,x02210
A<sus2>,x02200
D,xx0232
F#m,b44bbb,2
G#m,4,b33bbb,1
Bm,xb443b,2
F,b332bb,1
</chords>

<lyrics>
:Intro
[Am][A<sus2>]

:Verse One
[Am]Going into [D]business, [F#m]an agreement of [D]your bombast.
[G#m]You'd love my bed, [Bm]you took the other in[D]stead [F]

:Verse Two
[Am]But don't you [D]feel low? [F#m]I was being [D]oblique.
[G#m]You'd love my bed, [Bm]you got the other in[D]stead [F]

:Verse Three
[Am]What do you [D]owe me? [F#m]The price of your [D]peace of mind.
[G#m]You'd love my bed, [Bm]you took it all in[D]stead [F]
</lyrics>

As we can see, a Songbook Wizard input file consists of three parts: header, chords, and lyrics. Only the lyrics part is required, the other two parts are optional. Each part will be described in detail in the sections 2-4 below.

Songbook Wizard - Documentation - 2 - Header

<header>
title = 1992
artist = Blur
subtitle = From the 1999 album 13
<header>

This is the header section from the above example. The header section opens with <header> by itself, on its own line. The three variables are title, artist and subtitle. They must follow the <header> line. Each variable must appear on its own line. No matter what order the variables are entered, they will appear in the PDF file in the order, title, artist, subtitle. Any of the variables can be omitted. The header section can optionally be closed with </header> on its own line. Anything written after </header> will not be included in the final PDF.

Songbook Wizard - Documentation - 3 - Chords

<chords>
Am,x02210
A<sus2>,x02200
D,xx0232
F#m,b44bbb,2
G#m,4,b33bbb,1
Bm,xb443b,2
F,b332bb,1
</chords>

The chords section is where you give the wizard the data it needs to produce chord diagrams for your PDF. opens with <chords> on its own line, and closes with </chords>, also on its own line. The lines in between describe the chord shapes required in the song. There are up to four variables per line (that is, per chord), all separated by commas. The four variables are the chord name, base fret, notes, and barre position. This is how to write the variables in each line:

Songbook Wizard - Documentation - 4 - Lyrics

<lyrics>
:Intro
[Am][A<sus2>]

:Verse One
[Am]Going into [D]business, [F#m]an agreement of [D]your bombast.
[G#m]You'd love my bed, [Bm]you took the other in[D]stead [F]

:Verse Two
[Am]But don't you [D]feel low? [F#m]I was being [D]oblique.
[G#m]You'd love my bed, [Bm]you got the other in[D]stead [F]

:Verse Three
[Am]What do you [D]owe me? [F#m]The price of your [D]peace of mind.
[G#m]You'd love my bed, [Bm]you took it all in[D]stead [F]
</lyrics>

The lyrics section is opened with <lyrics> on its own line. It must be closed with </lyrics> on its own line, or the PDF will not be produced. Sections like "Intro" and "Verse" are marked with a semicolon (:). These lines appear in the PDF as section titles in italics to the left of the indented lyrics. The chord names that you would like printed above the lyrics should be written in [square brackets]. The chord names in square brackets will appear immediately above whatever text follows them. All other text in the lyrics section will appear exactly as printed, including line breaks. NOTE: If you have chords with no lyrics, as in the Intro section in the example, an empty line will be inserted. This means you do not need to insert a line break before the next section to keep a consistent look.

Songbook Wizard - Documentation - 5 - Formatting

There are currently two ways to control the look of the final PDF sheet:

In the default setting the title is printed on its own line in bold caps, then the artist and subtitle on the following line separated by a dash (-). If either the artist or subtitle are omitted, the dash will not appear in the final PDF. The header and chord diagrams are centred, like this:

TITLE
artist - subtitle

The GW Acoustic Emulation setting the title and artist are printed on the first line, the title in bold, and the artist in italics. The subtitle is printed underneath. The header and chord diagrams are left justified, like this:

title artist
subtitle

Songbook Wizard - Documentation - 6 - Final Remarks