Import and export

Your songs are yours. SONGUIDE exports them as files, as printable sheets, or as a plain list, so you are never locked in. A song, a folder, a divider, a selection or a whole setlist goes to other SONGUIDE users as a single file, including capos and lead vocals with their keys.

Importing songs

Bringing songs in has its own guide. Adding songs covers ChordPro files, ZIP archives, SongSelect, moving from OpenSong or OnSong, and sharing a file into SONGUIDE from another app. A SONGUIDE file someone shared with you is covered below under Importing a SONGUIDE file.

Exporting songs

Songs, folders, dividers and setlists all export through the same Export screen. You pick a format, then hand the file over:

SONGUIDE file

To send songs to other SONGUIDE users, the SONGUIDE file is the right choice. It comes first on the Export screen of a song, a folder or a selection. A .songuide file carries the song, the folder or the songs you selected, each with its capo and the keys of its lead vocals. A folder brings its dividers along with their text. When the recipient opens it in SONGUIDE, the songs arrive as new copies, or update or keep the versions they already have, see Importing a SONGUIDE file.

Dividers

A divider exports as a SONGUIDE file. Use Export in its action rail, Export Divider in the Divider options, or select several dividers and choose Export in the bar.

ChordPro

Every song exports as a standard ChordPro file named after the song, for example Amazing Grace (G).cho. A folder exports as a ZIP archive of its songs.

An exported file contains the song as written, so it opens in any app that reads ChordPro. Personal settings are not part of it, so your capo settings and lead vocals are never shared this way.

PDF

A song also exports as a finished songsheet on a white page, ready to print or to hand to someone who does not use SONGUIDE. It carries the song header with the title, artist, and metadata, the same section boxes as in the app, and the chords sitting above the lyrics exactly where they sit on screen. While the song is shown in a vocal key, the sheet is in that key too, with the lead vocals name in the header. Under Capo, the header also carries the capo of that key. An export from the song editor stays in the standard key. The file name carries the key you see. A folder exports as one PDF holding all its songs, each starting on a new page.

Four options shape the sheet:

• Chords, Capo, or Lyrics only. Chords prints the chords as written. Capo prints them transposed for the capo and adds the capo to the header, and is offered only for a song that has one. Lyrics only leaves the chords out and keeps the sections, so the structure stays readable.
• Notation. Standard or Numbers, offered whenever chords print. It starts from what your songsheet shows on this device, see Performing. With Capo and Numbers the chords print as numbers and the header still names the capo.
• Include comments. On by default. Turning it off leaves out the comments. Italic annotations inside a song stay either way. The option appears only when there is a comment to leave out.
• Page size. Folded away below the others, offering A4 and US Letter. SONGUIDE preselects the size your country uses and remembers your choice for the next export.

A capo export names the file after the capo and the shapes you actually play, for example Holy Forever (G) - Capo 3 (E).pdf. PDF export works offline. Nothing is uploaded and nothing is fetched, the whole sheet is built on your device.

Exporting setlists

The Setlist options screen has an Export Setlist row offering three formats.

SONGUIDE file

The SONGUIDE file is the default format for sending a setlist to other SONGUIDE users. It carries the whole setlist: the running order, the dividers with their text, every song as ChordPro, each entry's lead vocals with their key, and your capos as a suggestion the recipient can apply or not. When they open it in SONGUIDE, it becomes a complete setlist in one tap, see Importing a SONGUIDE file. When you share the file on iOS or Android, the running order also goes into the message as text, as long as the app accepts text alongside a file.

Renamed to .zip, the file opens as an ordinary archive of ChordPro files anywhere, so nobody without SONGUIDE is locked out.

PDF

The PDF opens with the running order, numbered songs with their key and the dividers listed in place, and continues with every song on its own pages in setlist order. When every song has a duration, the total time sits under the setlist name. Each entry names its lead vocals after the key. When the chords print for a capo, the capo sits between them, as in (G - Capo 3 - Anna). Every entry appears in the PDF as it is played, so a song listed twice with two different lead vocals gets two sheets, one in each key.

ChordPro ZIP

For other chord apps. The ZIP holds one ChordPro file per song and nothing else: no running order, no dividers, no capos, no lead vocals. A song listed twice contributes one file.

Importing a SONGUIDE file

A .songuide file holds a song, a folder, a divider, a selection or a setlist, and it opens in SONGUIDE from wherever it arrived. On iOS and Android, tap it in a chat, in Mail, or in a file manager, or share it into SONGUIDE. On every platform, Import SONGUIDE file on the Add song and Add divider screens and Import setlist in the setlist dropdown pick the file from your device. The screen then names what the file holds.

Before anything lands, a review lists the contents and shows what happens to every song and divider. New copies take the sender's capos unless you turn off Apply capos to new songs in the menu, and that choice is remembered. Show differences on an expanded row lays your version and the received one out passage by passage, and you can take single sections or details such as the tempo or the artist from the received chart while keeping the rest of yours. Under Lead vocals and their keys it lists every vocal key a song of yours would gain, change or lose, and you keep your key or take the received one for each name.

A shared setlist

A setlist is about playing the sender's running order, so it reuses what you have:

• Songs and dividers you already have are matched and reused, so nothing is duplicated. The same song in another key is transposed to the sender's key when none of your setlists plays it, and your capo moves with it so the chord shapes stay the same.
• Everything else arrives as a new copy in a new folder named after the setlist.
• A song that differs from yours is marked for a look. Open its row to choose your version, a new copy, or the received version.

Preferred folder at the top decides which of your folders the matches come from first, and the presets Suggestions, New copies, and Your versions set every row at once. Nothing you already have changes unless the review says so.

Shared songs, folders and dividers

Songs someone sends you arrive, whatever your library holds. Songs and dividers you do not have are always added. For the ones you already have, the chips under Already in your library decide:

• Add as copy is where the review starts, or Add as copies when the file holds more than one song or divider in total. Every song arrives as a new copy, next to your own version.
• Update yours replaces your version with the received one. To keep parts of yours, open the row and use Show differences.
• Keep yours leaves your versions exactly as they are and adds only what you do not have. It is offered when the file holds more than one song or divider in total.

A song counts as one you have when its title matches together with the artist or the chart. A merely similar title arrives as a copy, and its row still lets you pick your version by hand. A divider counts when its title matches.

Add to decides where the copies land. A song, a divider or a selection lands in No folder unless you pick one of your folders. A folder arrives as a new folder of its own name, or in one of yours. A divider whose title the folder already holds gets a number, such as Break (2), since each folder keeps its divider titles unique.

For every file

• Lead vocals and their keys are imported with every added or updated song, and missing names are added to the folder. Updating a song of yours from a shared song, selection or folder also removes the vocal keys the received song does not carry. If one of your vocal keys changes or is removed, the row shows it, and Show differences keeps yours. If a folder's list of names is full, the import is blocked.
• On the Free plan the import is blocked before anything is written when the new copies would exceed your remaining space. Matching, updating or keeping songs you already have makes it fit.
• The import lands in one step, and Undo import takes it back until you leave the screen: the setlist, folder, songs, dividers, names and vocal keys it created are removed, and your own songs, dividers and vocal keys are restored.

A file made with a newer version of SONGUIDE than yours says so and offers to import the songs it contains as plain ChordPro files instead.

Copying a list as text

A setlist or a folder can also go to the clipboard as plain text, from the same Export screen. Handy for sending the running order to the band without sending any files:

1. Go Tell It On The Mountain (Ab - Anna)
Announcement
2. Joy To The World (D)
3. Amazing Grace (G - Tom)

A setlist names each entry's lead vocals after the key. A folder copies its songs unnumbered with the total in the first line, because a folder is a library rather than a running order. Both lists carry every song, including ones that have no chords or lyrics yet.