# Getting started with ChordPro

For a good understanding it is important to know that ChordPro is basically a file transformation program. It reads a file containing lyrics and chords according to the ChordPro File Standard, and produces a neatly formatted PDF document that you can view and print.

# Linux

When you start the wxchordpro program it will show a File Open dialog where you can designate an existing ChordPro file.

  • If you have one, select it and its contents will be shown in a new window.
  • If you don’t have one, press Cancel and a (basically empty) window will be shown.
    From the menu bar, choose Help > Insert song example. A small song will appear in the editor window.

# Windows

The wxchordpro app is capable of handling documents with filename extensions .cho and .crd. If you have such a document you can double-click it from the Explorer and ChordPro will be started with the document opened. You can also drag a ChordPro document to the ChordPro desktop icon.

When you start the wxchordpro program it will show a File Open dialog where you can designate an existing ChordPro file.

  • If you have one, select it and its contents will be shown in a new window.
  • If you don’t have one, press Cancel and a (basically empty) window will be shown.
    From the menu bar, choose Help > Insert song example. A small song will appear in the editor window.

# MacOS

The ChordPro app is capable of handling documents with filename extensions .cho, .chordpro, .chopro, and .crd. If you have such a document you can double-click it from the Finder and ChordPro will be started with the document opened. You can also drag a ChordPro document to the ChordPro app icon.

When you start the ChordPro app without document it will show a (basically empty) song in its window.

  • If you have existing ChordPro files, choose File from the menu bar, select Open, and navigate to a ChordPro document.
  • If you don’t have one, from the menu bar, choose Help > Insert song example. A small song will appear in the editor window.

# All

From the menu bar, choose File > Preview. If all goes well, a preview window will open showing the formatted PDF document. From the preview window you can print and save the PDF document.

Note that you need to have a PDF file viewer application installed, and the system must be configured to use this viewer to open files with .pdf extension.

# Preferences

From the menu bar, choose Edit > Preferences…. This will show the preferences dialog.

# Ignore default configs

This prevents ChordPro from processing system wide, user specific and song specific config files. Checking this will make sure that ChordPro only uses the configs set in the Preferences.

# Presets

If enabled, you can choose one or more preset configs to be used.

# Custom config

If enabled, use the … button to choose a custom config file. See Creating a config (GUI) how to get started with a custom config.

# Custom library

ChordPro has a built-in library with configs and other data. With Custom library you can add an additional location where to look for data.

# Template for new songs

Here you can select a ChordPro song to be used as a template for new songs. Its contents are inserted in the edit window when a new song is created (File > New).

# Notation

ChordPro supports several notation systems for songs.

Supported values include:

  • common (C, D, E, F, G, A, B)
  • dutch (same as common)
  • german (C, … A, Ais/B, H)
  • latin (Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, …)
  • scandinavian (C, … A, A#/Bb, H)
  • solfège (Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, …)
  • nashville (1, 2, 3, …)
  • roman (I, II, III, …)

# Transpose

Transpose the song from a given key to a new key.

If transposed chords need accidentals, you can choose the desired behaviour:

  • Auto (transpose up uses sharps, transpose down uses flats)
  • Sharps (always use sharps).
  • Flats (always use flats).

# Transcode

Transcode the song to another notation system. See the list of supported notation systems above.

# Editor font

Choose a font and font size for the editor (main window).

# PDF previewer

System command to run an alternative PDF previewer.

In the command, %f will be replaced by the file name of the (temporary) PDF document. %u will be replaced by the file URL. If no %f or %u is given, the file name is appended to the command. In other words, atril and atril %f are equivalent.

Leave empty to use the system default viewer.

# Legacy ASCII input format

Before ChordPro it was common to write lead sheets with chords on separate lines preceding the lyrics. This is often referred to as crd format. For example

      D          G    D
Swing low, sweet chariot,
                       A7
Comin’ for to carry me home.

ChordPro tries to detect whether the input files are in this legacy format and if so, internally converts the data to ChordPro (cho format) before processing.

Swing [D]low, sweet [G]chari[D]ot,
Comin’ for to carry me [A7]home.

# Command Line operation

If you are familiar with working on the command line, the basic command to use is:

chordpro mysong.cho

This will process mysong.cho and produce the PDF document mysong.pdf.

chordpro --help will give you a list of options that you can pass to the chordpro command.

More information can be found in the User Guide.