1chordii(1)                  General Commands Manual                 chordii(1)
2
3
4

NAME

6       chordii - produce a professional looking PostScript sheet-music from an
7       ascii file containing lyrics and chords information.
8

SYNOPSIS

10       chordii [OPTIONS] FILE [FILE...]
11

DESCRIPTION

13       chordii produces a postscript document from a  lyrics  file  containing
14       chord indications and chorus delimiters. The document produced contains
15       the lyrics of a song, with the guitar chords appearing above the  right
16       words.  A  representation  of all chords used in the song is printed at
17       the bottom of the last page.
18
19       Extensive documentation can be found in the chordii User Guide,  avail‐
20       able         from        the        Chordii        download        page
21http://sf.net/projects/chordii/files⟩.
22
23

OPTIONS

25       chordii takes both long options, starting with --,  and  short  options
26       starting with a single -, according to the getopt_long(3) conventions.
27
28
29       --about -A
30               Will print the "About Chordii..." message.
31
32       --single-space -a
33               Automatically single spaces lines that have no chords.
34
35       --chord-size=CHORD_FONT_SIZE -c
36               Sets the size, in points, of the font used to display chords to
37               the specified integer value.
38
39       --chord-font=CHORD_FONT -C
40               Sets the font used to print chords to the specified name.  That
41               name must be known to your PostScript Interpreter.
42
43       --chord-colour=CHORD_COLOUR -C
44               Sets  the  colour  used to print chords. Recognized colours are
45               'black', 'white', 'red', 'green', 'blue',  'yellow',  'magenta'
46               and  'cyan'.  Arbitrary colours can be specified using the con‐
47               ventional hexadecimal notation '#RRGGBB'.
48
49       --dump-chords-text -d
50               Generates a text chord chart of all internally known chords  as
51               well  as chords defined in the .chordrc file. Chords defined in
52               the .chordrc file are identified with  the  "(local)"  caption.
53               The printout is suitable for input to the .chordrc file.
54
55       --dump-chords -D
56               Generates  a  PostScript  chord  chart  of all internally known
57               chords as well as chords defined in the .chordrc  file.  Chords
58               defined in the .chordrc file are identified with a small aster‐
59               isk after the chord grid.
60
61       --no-chord-grids -G
62               Disable printing  of  the  chord  grids  for  the  whole  input
63               file(s).  The  effect can be disable for any particular song by
64               the usage of the grid or g directive.
65
66       --no-easy-chord-grids -g
67               Disable printing of grids for "easy" chords. Whether a  builtin
68               chord  is  easy  or  not  has  been  arbitrarily decided by the
69               authors. The general rule was that  any  chord  in  its  major,
70               minor, 7th or minor 7th was "easy" while everything else (maj7,
71               aug, dim, sus, etc...) was "difficult". All chords  defined  in
72               the  .chordrc  file or in the input file are defined as "diffi‐
73               cult".
74
75       --chord-grids-sorted -S
76               Prints the chord grids in alphabetical  order.  Default  is  to
77               print in the order they appear in the song.
78
79       --help -h
80               Prints a short options summary.
81
82       --toc -i
83               Generates  a  table  of  contents with the song titles and page
84               numbers.  It implies page numbering through the document. Index
85               pages are not numbered.
86
87       --lyrics-only -l
88               Prints only the lyrics of the song.
89
90       --even-pages-number-left -L
91               Places  the  odd  and  even page numbers in the lower right and
92               left corners respectively (for two-sided output).  The  default
93               is all page numbers on the right.
94
95       --nashville -N
96               Basic  support  for  Nashville tuning. Currently this just dis‐
97               ables chord validation, transposition, and diagram printing.
98
99       --output=FILE -o
100               Sends PostScript output to FILE.
101
102       --start-page-number=FIRST_PAGE -p
103               Numbers the pages consecutively starting with first_page  (e.g.
104               1).  Without this option, each song restarts the page numbering
105               at 1, and page numbers are only put on subsequent pages of mul‐
106               tiple page songs.
107
108       --page-size=PAPER_SIZE -P
109               Specifies the paper size, "us", "letter", "a4" or "a5". Default
110               is "a4".
111
112       --chord-grid-size=GRID_SIZE -s
113               Sets the size of the chord grids.
114
115       --text-size=TEXT_SIZE -t
116               Sets the size, in points, of  the  font  used  to  display  the
117               lyrics  to  the specified integer value. The title line is dis‐
118               played using that point size + 5.  The  subtitle  is  displayed
119               using  that  point  size  - 2. The tablature is displayed using
120               this point size - 2.
121
122       --text-font=TEXT_FONT -T
123               Sets the font used to print text to the  specified  name.  That
124               name must be known to your PostScript Interpreter.
125
126       --version -V
127               Prints version and patch level.
128
129       --vertical-space=EXTRA_SPACE -w
130               Adds  extra  vertical  space between the lines to improve read‐
131               ability.
132
133       --transpose=SEMITONES -x
134               Sets up transposition to that number of semitones. Can  not  be
135               zero.  All  chord  names  must be build in the following way in
136               order to be recognized:
137
138               {note-name}[#|b][^/]* [ '/' {note-name}[#|b][^/]* ]
139
140               That is, a valid note name, possibly followed by  '#'  or  'b',
141               followed  by  other modifier ('7', 'm', etc...). Many such con‐
142               struct can make up a chord name, as long as they are  separated
143               by '/'.
144
145               {note-name}       must       appear       in      the      list
146               'A','B','C','D','E','F','G'.
147
148       --2-up -2
149               Prints two logical pages per physical page.
150
151       --4-up -4
152               Prints four logical pages per physical page.
153
154

KEYWORDS

156       A line starting with a '#' is interpreted as a comment and generates no
157       output.  (although  all  your  comments are automatically mailed to the
158       authors, and we read them at parties...)
159
160       Directives that appear between curly brackets ('{' and '}') have a spe‐
161       cial  meaning.  They must be alone on a line. Blanks before the opening
162       bracket and after the closing bracket are not  significant.  Directives
163       suffixed by a colon require arguments.
164
165       Blanks inside a directive are not significant (except inside one of the
166       comments directives).
167
168       Supported directives are:
169
170       titles: TYPE
171               Selects the placement of the titles.  Currently  supported  are
172               left and center (default).
173
174       start_of_chorus or soc
175               which  indicates the start of a chorus (yep). The complete cho‐
176               rus will be highlighted by a change bar, to be  easily  located
177               by the player.
178
179       end_of_chorus or eoc
180               marks the end of the chorus
181
182       comment: or c:
183               will  call the printing of the rest of the line, highlighted by
184               a grey box (Useful to call a chorus, for example)
185
186       comment_italic: or ci:
187               will print the comment in an italic font ... well  not  really.
188               It  will  print the comment in the font used for printing chord
189               names (which is normally italic unless you specified a  differ‐
190               ent chord_font).
191
192       comment_box: or cb:
193               will print the comment inside a bounding box.
194
195       new_song or ns
196               marks the beginning of a new song. It enables you to put multi‐
197               ple songs in one file. It is not required at the  beginning  of
198               the file.
199
200       title: or t:
201               specifies the title of the song. It will appear centered at the
202               top of the first page, and at the bottom of every  other  page,
203               accompanied there by the page number, within the current song.
204
205       subtitle: or st:
206               specifies  a  string  to be printed right below the title. Many
207               subtitles can be specified
208
209       define: NAME base-fret OFFSET frets STR1...STR6
210               defines a new chord called NAME.
211
212               Example for a 6-string guitar:
213
214               {define Ab+: base-fret 1 frets x x 2 1 1 0}
215
216               The keyword "base-fret" indicates that the number that  follows
217               (OFFSET)  is the first fret that is to be displayed when repre‐
218               senting the way this chord is played.
219
220               The keyword "frets" then appears and is followed by  6  values.
221               These  values  are  the  fret number [ 1 to n ] for each string
222               [STR1 to STR6] and are RELATIVE to the offset. A value of  "-",
223               "X" or "x" indicates a string that is not played.
224
225               Keywords "base-fret" and "frets" are MANDATORY.
226
227               A  value of 0 for a given string means it is to be played open,
228               and will be marked by a small open circle above the  string  in
229               the grid. The strings are numbered in ascending order of tonal‐
230               ity, starting on the low E (the top string). On output, a chord
231               defined  in the user's .chordrc file will have a small asterisk
232               near its grid, a chord defined in a song will  have  two  small
233               asterixes.
234
235               At  the  beginning  of  every  song, the default chords are re-
236               loaded and the user's .chordrc file is re-read.  Chord  defini‐
237               tion of new chords inside the text of a song are only valid for
238               that song.
239
240               The syntax of a {define} directive has been modified in version
241               3.5.   Chordii will attempt to recognize an old-format {define}
242               and will accept it. It will, though, print a  warning  inviting
243               you  to modify your input file to use the new syntax (the exact
244               {define} entry to use is provided as an example).
245
246       pagetype: TYPE
247               Selects the page type. Currently supported page  types  are  a4
248               and letter.
249               This directive may only occur in the .chordrc file.
250
251       textfont: POSTSCRIPT_FONT
252               same as -T command option
253
254       textsize: N
255               same as -t command option
256
257       chordfont: POSTSCRIPT_FONT
258               same as -C command option
259
260       chordsize: N
261               same as -c command option
262
263       no_grid or ng
264               will disable printing of the chord grids for the current song.
265
266       grid or g
267               will  enable  the  printing  of the chord grids for the current
268               song (subject to the limitation caused by the usage of  the  -g
269               option).  This directive will overide the runtime -G option for
270               the current song.
271
272       new_page or np
273               will force a logical page break (which will obviously turn  out
274               to  be  a  physical page break if you are not in either 2-up or
275               4-up mode).
276
277       new_physical_page or npp
278               will force a physical page break (in any mode).
279
280       start_of_tab or sot
281               will cause chord to use a monospace (ie: non-proportional) font
282               for  the  printing  of  text.  This  can be used to enter 'tab'
283               information where character positioning is crucial. The Courier
284               font  is  used  with  a smaller point-size than the rest of the
285               text.
286
287       end_of_tab or eot
288               will stop using monospace font. The effect is implicit  at  the
289               end of a song.
290
291       columns: N or col: N
292               specifies  the  number  of  columns on the pages of the current
293               song.
294
295       column_break or colb
296               forces a column break. The next line of the song will appear in
297               the next available column, at the same height as the last "col‐
298               umns" statement if still on the same page, or at the top of the
299               page otherwise.
300

FILES

302       $HOME/.chordrc
303               Initial directives re-read after each song.
304

NOTES

306       Run  time  options  override  settings  from your .chordrc file. So the
307       assignement sequence of, for instance, the text size, will  be:  system
308       default,  .chordrc,  run-time  option, and finally from within the song
309       itself.
310
311       All keywords are case independent.
312

BUGS

314       Chordii will not wrap long lines around the right margin.
315
316       White space is not inserted inside the text line, even if  white  space
317       is  inserted in the "chord" line above the text. The net effect is that
318       chord names can appear further down the line than  what  was  intended.
319       This  is  a  side effect from fixing an old "bug" that caused the chord
320       names to overlap.  This bug will only manifest itself if you have  lots
321       of  chord but little text.  Inserting white space in the text is a good
322       workaround.
323
324       In 2-up mode, if page-numbering is invoked on a document  that  has  an
325       odd  number  of page, the page number for the last page will be printed
326       at the bottom right of the virtual page instead of the bottom right  of
327       the physical page.
328
330       Copyright (C)2008 The Chordii Project
331       Copyright (C)1990-91-92-93 by Martin Leclerc and Mario Dorion
332

AUTHORS

334       Johan Vromans ⟨jvromans@squirrel.nl⟩
335       Martin Leclerc ⟨Martin.Leclerc@Sun.COM⟩ *** DEFUNCT ***
336       and Mario Dorion ⟨Mario.Dorion@Sun.COM⟩ *** DEFUNCT ***
337

CONTRIBUTORS

339       Steve Putz ⟨putz@parc.xerox.com⟩
340       Jim Gerland ⟨GERLAND@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu⟩
341       Leo Bicknell ⟨ab147@freenet.acsu.buffalo.edu⟩
342
343
344
345Utilities                          July 2011                        chordii(1)
Impressum