First of all: my written English isn't perfect, but I hope this text will help you nevertheless! For suggestions see the Section called Contacts in Chapter 8..
GuitarTeX is a tool for guitarists who want to print good looking and easy to play song sheets or song books from their chord or chordpro files. It uses the well known chord format with several extensions.
It is based upon an idea of Martin Leclerc and Mario Dorion from Canada and their program Chord (Version 3.5 from 1993). To use GuitarTeX, you need to have knowledge of the Chord program (explained later). Though the LaTeX text processing system is used by GuitarTeX, you don't have to know very much about it. GuitarTeX produces Postscript or PDF output automatically (if you want). The Chord directives supplied by GuitarTeX are described in Chapter 5.
Features
Graphical user interface with integrated editor and syntax highlighting
Prints good looking song sheets including guitar chords without using monospace fonts
Output formats: LaTeX, Postscript and PDF
Compatible with ChordPro format, import function for ascii format
Support for music typesetting with the LaTeX packages MusixTeX, MusixLyr and TabDefs
Flexible page layout (paper size, margins...)
User defined colors for different parts of a song (e.g. verse, chorus)
Optional printing of chord symbols at the end of a song
Transpose up or down your song by mouse clicks
Creates single song sheets or complete song books with a title page, table of contents, headlines with page numbering, chord table and index
Supports ASCII tablature and the built in tablature directives for guitar and bass tabs
Support for multiple languages (if you don't find your langauage, you can help the author to add it)
Runs on Linux operating system (it should run on any Unix system that is supported by Perl/TK and LaTeX, but it is not tested)
Setup your song book project from single song files with the include directive
LaTeX commands may be used in Chordpro files (for the professionals)
GuitarTeX converts a file with lyrics and chords in a special format to a LaTeX file. Here is an example input file:
{title:The Manual Song} {st:No-one has yet claimed responsibility} [D]I print verses [A^7]in a [D]row, The next line gets put [A^7]down be[D]low, Mumble mumble [A^7]rhymes with [D]grow [G] [G#] [A] Done this verse, now [A^7susX]on we [quietly]go! {soc} [D]This is the [Bm]manual song [A^7]No-one really knows what's [D]goin' on [D]This is the [F#m]manual song [A^7]And now the chorus is already [D]gone {eoc} [D]The second verse is [A^7]like the [D]first, The music poor, the [A^7]verse is [D]worse, I wrote this since [A^7]I'd get [D]sued, If I used real songs. [A^7]This'll [D]do. {c:repeat chorus} |
The ^-sign is new for users of other Chord clones. It makes the following characters appear superscript. You can see the output in Figure 1-1.
GuitarTeX converts the Chord format into "normal" LaTeX format like a kind of preprocessor. This may be a single song or even a complete songbook. You may as well translate your chord file directly into postscript or PDF format.
If you know LaTeX, you may edit the output file. The advantage of GuitarTeX is that you can use all LaTeX features to design a single song sheet or songbook, e.g.: packages like graphics or MusicTeX, table of contents, marginal notes, and so on.
hosted by
Sourceforge.net