Editing songs
The three editor tabs, how the Text editor and ChordPro stay in sync, and what happens when you paste.
The song editor has three tabs. All three work on the same song, they are just different views of it.
| Tab | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Song Info | Metadata like title, artist, key, and tempo in a simple form |
| Text | Lyrics with chords above them, edited like plain text |
| ChordPro | The raw ChordPro source of the song |
One song, two views
The Text editor and the ChordPro tab always show the same song. Edit chords above lyrics in the Text editor and SONGUIDE edits the ChordPro for you. Edit the raw ChordPro and the Text editor reflects it immediately. You can switch back and forth at any time, even mid edit, and your cursor position is preserved.
This means you do not have to learn ChordPro to use SONGUIDE. But when you want precise control, the raw source is one tab away. The ChordPro format guide documents everything SONGUIDE understands.
Song Info
The form edits the most important metadata. Each field maps to a ChordPro directive in the song source:
| Field | Directive |
|---|---|
| Title | {title: ...} |
| Artist | {artist: ...} |
| Copyright | {copyright: ...} |
| CCLI number | {ccli: ...} |
| Key | {key: ...} |
| Original key | {original_key: ...} |
| Tempo | {tempo: ...} |
| Time signature | {time: ...} |
Changing a field updates the directive in place. Clearing a field removes it.
The Text editor
The Text editor shows your song as rows, the way you would write a song sheet on paper:
- Section headings like Verse 1 or Chorus. They become section markers in ChordPro.
- Chord lines hold chords positioned above the lyric syllables.
- Lyric lines hold the words.
- Comment boxes are notes to the performers, shown in amber on the song sheet.
- Tab lines hold guitar tablature.
Chords stay aligned with the lyrics under them. When you move a chord left or right, SONGUIDE updates its position inside the ChordPro line, for example A[G]mazing grace.
Pasting from other sources
Paste a song sheet from any website or document and SONGUIDE classifies each line automatically:
- Lines that contain only chord symbols become chord lines.
- Known section names become section headings. That includes bracketed forms like
[Verse 2], which many chord websites use. - Everything else becomes lyrics.
After pasting you can retype any row, for example turning a lyric line into a comment box, so a quick cleanup takes seconds. To bring in whole files, see Import and export.
The ChordPro tab
The ChordPro tab is a plain text editor for the raw song source with syntax highlighting for directives and chords. It is the best place for bulk edits, for fixing an import, or for anything the Text editor does not cover. Every valid ChordPro construct is preserved, even directives SONGUIDE does not render. The ChordPro format guide covers every supported directive.