PDF software manual for Trancord
Contents
1. ENTER NUMBER OF HALF STEPS OR TO TRANSPOSE gt 15 When you enter the number of halfsteps to transpose you are given a chance to reject with the prompt OK TO TRANSPOSE BY 1 HALFSTEPS Y N If you answer N no transposition is performed and you are returned to the main menu If you answer Y the song is checked for invalid chord or note names If any non notes in bracketed chord structures are found they are presented on the display and you are prompted for example if line has an issue like the work lick inside the chord The C lick Dog Barks LINE 1 HAS AN INCORRECTLY FORMED NOTE OR CHORD TEXT OTHER THAN NOTES WERE DETECTED IN CHORDS IF YOU SELECT TO TRANSPOSE THE INDICATED ITEMS WILL NOT BE TRANSPOSED DO YOU WANT TO PERFORM THE TRANSPOSITION Y N If there are no untransposable items in chord structures you won t get this prompt If you answer N to this prompt no transposition will occur to any part of the song If you answer Y transposition will occur on the notes or chords that meet the note naming criteria presented in the file format guidelines previously mentioned Note that define chord braced commands like define Em7 A 1030200 are not transposed but the C in the above example would but not the lick Note that when a song is transposed the key signature normally associated with the new key as annunciated in the key command is used as a basis for determining which n2. gt or plus character Single double or multiple chords not just two may be included in a compound chord The usual notation for the use of the separator characters is that is used to separate the primary chord from the bass line chord Space is used to indicate separate chords and commas are sometimes used to indicate single beat chords The greater than symbol is often used as eighth note separators or to indicate a run from the first note to the second The plus character is usually used to denote adding an extra note to a chord Slashes are also used to indicate stopped notes chunk instead of brummmmm Separator characters may occur isolated as you see fit During transposition the separator characters delimit chords and indicate these special timing effects These are only suggestions If you deviate from this convention it is recommended that you put some explanatory comments at the top of your cho file to explain your notation Multiple spaces and separator characters are allowed inside a chord structure to provide spacing out if necessary Example chord notation C good old C Cb C flat otherwise known as B C E C chord bassline E Cmaj7 C major seventh Cmin C minor Csus4 C suspended 4th C F and G is a triad with suspended fourth Cdim7 C diminished 7th C E flat G flat and A A C A chord bassline C A Bassline A chord usually indicates tha
3. e Built in print previewers for single and double column landscape output Supports automatic transposition of chords e Supports compound chords for transposition for example C E or C E G e All menus have built in online help pages for instant reference e Runs on all Windows operating systems Installation Create a folder in C drive called Trancord and copy the program file trancord exe into the folder Create an association of file extension CHO with the Trancord program This is done on Win95 and Win98 by clicking on a folder s View pulldown menu then selecting Folder options then File Types Select New Type if the CHO is not already in use in the registered list then fill out the appropriate data description Trancord file extension cho then click on NEW and add two programs that can open the file You should include Notepad exe as openNotepad Notepad exe is usually located in the C Windows folder and Trancord exe as openTrancord Then click on OK This will allow you to right click on a cho file and choose openNotepad or openTrancord You would use Notepad to open and edit the file if major editing needs to be done Trancord has an editor built in for doing minor changes and chord movement and addition but it doesn t support cutting copying or pasting Alternatively you can drag filenames onto the Trancord program to open them without creating an association Input File Specifications The fixed file extension for a T
4. and increase the inter column gap in landscape mode Negative gaps are allowed and the maximum allowed is 100 characters A negative gap is useful if the first column of a two column layout has shorter lines than the second column and you want to slide the second column over to the left a bit further A negative column gap overwrites any characters at the ends of the left column HOME and END take you to the beginning or the end of the current line ESC the escape key exits the previewer and returns to the main menu After adjusting the font sizes margins gaps and page layout you can generate a rich text output file from the main menu using the parameters you ve adjusted Those parameters are reflected into the Configuration of output menu but are not saved in the INI file You may choose to save them by going into the Configuration menu then exiting the Configuration menu and choosing to save the options as defaults When you are adjusting margins in the previewer remember that the portrait and landscape margin settings are separate sets of margins Adjusting the landscape margins does not adjust the portrait settings 19 Text Mode Previewer The V key activates the text mode single column previewer It formats the data into a single column and includes the space above chord output configuration option It adds form feed characters to the output as necessary to mark page breaks This is a quick non graphical viewer of th
5. bracket for a chord Chorus command soc The start of chorus command will create a Chorus line with Chorus centered in the output column width Chorus eoc The end of chorus command will create a line centered in the output column width Sometimes when you are trying to get a song to fit on one page you might choose to delete the eoc to save a line of output Here is an example of the use and output from using a Chorus command t Just a simple title to show that chorus annunciators are centered soc C La La La La F Lee Lee Lee Lee G Dum Dee Dah Dah C Dum Dum Dum Dum eoc The resulting output is Just A Simple Title To Show That Chorus Annunciators Are Centered Chorus La La La La Lee 1 L L G Dum Dee Dah Dah Dum Dum Dum Dum 10 Column Break col Putting this command in your file creates a forced page or column break in your output files and printouts Use this command to create attractive break points in your songs at logical points if desired As with all other brace enclosed commands it must start in column 1 of the file Nonprinting Comments 1 gnorethistext This is a nonprinting text for commentary The text that follows the in column 1 is not printed in the output The must be in column 1 It is often used to record credits for whoever did the transcription of the music into the cho file Blank lines Blank lines are spa
6. keys While previewing you may alter some of the output formatting options on the fly The key is active during previewing to give you a reminder of what keystrokes are available during the preview The keystroke functions available during preview are P the page layout command switches between portrait view and landscape two column view lt the cursor keys select which margin is highlighted in green for adjustment and increases and decreases the margin that is highlighted in green The program will not allow you to decrease a margin beyond the hard printer limits that are set in the configuration of output option F The capital F key increases the font size in round robin style the font point size selected for output and previewing The font sizes are 8 through 12 point monospaced Each F key increases the font size with wrap back from 12 point down to 8 The currently selected and displayed font size value 8 to 12 is shown in the lower right hand corner of the screen f The lower case f key decreases the font size in round robin style the font point size selected for output and previewing The font sizes are 8 through 12 point monospaced Each f key decreases the font size with wrap back from 8 point up to 12 The currently selected and displayed font size value 8 to 12 is shown in the lower right hand corner of the screen lt and gt the less than and greater than keys decrease
7. lyric lines into shorter segments If there are serious errors in your source file the errors will be shown on the screen with a prompt to type any key Typing a key returns to the MAIN menu It is not possible to configure the output if there are any formatting errors in your source file Use the Edit facility to correct formatting errors then return to the output configuration page The output formatting features are described briefly in the online Output Configuration help which may be accessed by typing the key at this menu The features are described below the page format option toggles switches between landscape and portrait output formats Portrait is best used when the lyric lines are too wide to comfortably fit in two columns Portrait is a single column format and prints such that when reading the paper the narrow dimension of the paper is from left to right and the longest dimension of the page 15 top to bottom Landscape mode 15 the page turned on its side and is best used if the lyric lines are shorter The idea behind customizing the page layout for each song is to try to get the whole song to fit on one single sided page You may choose the page format here and also within the WYSIWYG viewer the gap setting allows you to adjust how many blank spaces are used to separate the two columns in landscape mode All output files assume you are using a monospaced font and the column width for landscape is determine
8. of a line and type the Enter key a blank new line is placed after the old line Move a Chord Put the cursor inside or on the chord to move and type the F2 key User the cursor keys to move the chord around and drop it in place using the F2 key again You may not move a chord from one line to the next unless you join the two lines together first move the chord then resplit the line WYSIWYG Previewer The previewer activated by typing the W key from the main menu gives you a very close approximation to what the rich text formatted output will look like The options that are set in the Configuration of Output option C are used to build and present the preview The data is formatted and drawn on the screen along 18 with the page boundaries presentation margins and the lyrics chords and braced commands The currently selected font size is also shown in the lower right hand corner of the screen If more than one page is required you may use the PageUp and PageDown keys to scroll through the pages If a line of text goes past the right margin the characters at fault are drawn in bright red to bring your attention to them In a rich text format RTF output these characters would wrap down to the next line The presentation margins are shown in gray One of the margins is shown in green This margin is the one selected for adjustment within the previewer You can select which margin is selected for adjustment using the four arrow
9. two column landscape presentation Microsoft Word and Wordpad Lotus Wordpro and most word processors can open and print RTF files The program includes output formatting features a built in editor and chord transposition to any other key The program is intended to be used to keep lyrics and chords properly lined up in output files and to keep the lyric to chord relationships embedded in the source cho file This ensures that the chords are properly placed over the lyrics without having to count characters and allows the lyrics to be edited without affecting the chord relative positions The program has the following features Can read in a plain text file of lyrics or a cho chopro file Monospaced font selection of 8 through 12 point Courier New font Portrait or landscape output file Plain text txt or rich text format rtf output file Lyrics and instructions txt output file Printer hard margin settings Separate adjustable presentation margins for portrait and landscape Adjustable intercolumn gap setting Optional extra line above the chord line Optional boldifying of all chords Output configuration is saved in C trancord ini file and loaded on program startup Trancord file format options supported Extra Trancord format switches supported Auto centering of titles subtitles and artist and chorus annunciation e Simple key menu driven interface e Built in text editor for minor changes and chord movement
10. D a 9 FORBIDDEN LYRICS a te ie el ees 9 CHORUS COMMAND 2 ox ube 10 COLUMN BREAK sah See ae Bei A eS 11 NONPRINTING COMMENTS eal asad 11 IBIGANK LINES 11 PARENTHETIGAL GOMMENTS 11 TYRICG GHORDILANES 11 EXAMPLE FICTITIOUS 11 USE OF THE PROGRAM ii T SEEE EESE r Sesa 12 STARTING TRANCORD WITH FILENAME cccssessscccececeesscnecececsesesnaececececsessaececcececsessasececececseseaasecececcseseaaaaecececeesesuaececccessenenaeaeeecs 12 QUTPUT CONFIGURATION IND BILE see tsa ees eed 13 aa a T aa r aeae a saler 13 KO 2 TINE SA E E EEE E E E E E E E E EE E E 13 LINES IN MEMORY ANNUNCIATOR AT THE BOTTOM cssssccsssececsesecessececsesaececsnseeeessaeecsesaeceeceeaecessueeecsesaeceseesecee
11. P PAGEDN ENTER ESC EXIT F1 EDITHELP You can receive a quick reference page from the editor by typing the F3 key The editor is ALWAYS in the insert mode of operation to closer emulate the Notepad editor This also prevents you from accidentally overtyping something you might have wanted to keep The editor does not support copying and pasting content and is not intended to be a full fledged word processor It has a CHORDMOVER feature that is unique to this program and enables you to easily move chords around on a line without having to retype them All the function keys are described below The editor is designed such that the line you are editing 15 ALWAYS centered in the page This lets you easily see what came before and what comes after the current line without having to incessantly page up and down lt J cursor keys These keys allow you to move the flashing underliner cursor to different lines and columns within the file Remember that the editor is always in the INSERT mode so whatever character the cursor is sitting under will be pushed to the right as you type in new content HOME END keys these keys bring the cursor to the beginning or the end of the current working line They do not move up and down through the file See CNTL HOME and CNTL END for those features The Delete key deletes the character at the cursor pulling everything afterwards in If
12. Trancord for Windows Software Version 01 08 2011 By Duane Becker CONTENTS TRANCORD FOR WINDOWS 1 BY DUANE BECKER EEaren iS ees ESETET EERE 1 INTRODUCTION OSSES 4 INSTALLATION E 4 INPUT FILE SPECIFICATIONS 5 TITLE COMMAND vast pendeeea veaua cn vel teleesepbedeuvevses suuacua ca ped beteesennasevessdee A R S OINETAN 5 GOMNMAND tes ST 6 ARTIST COMMAND CHORD NOTATION COMPOUND CHORDS AND SEPARATOR CHARACTERS cssessesssseececsenececeecececeesusaecececesesaaecececeecseneaseaesececeensaeeecececsessesssaeseesesesensaaeeeeces 6 Example chord NOLAL OM dates esate oi 7 TREY COMMAND aa dossdtence dedseneestnecncededssndvaucs 8 DEFINIFION OF CHORDS E E 8 asa cet eansa geese nade 8 T YRIC CHOR
13. URN TO MENU Sorry but you cannot read in a nonexistent file Type any key and go respecify the filename to read If the file is found the user is prompted ARE YOU SURE IT S READ THE FILE Y N If you respond with Y to this prompt the program will read the file xxxxxxxx cho into memory and return to the main menu Open New File The open new file action selected by typing the O key clears the program memory and gets a new filename from the user so you can start a new file You are first prompted ARE YOU SURE IT S OK TO CLEAR OUT MEMORY AND START A NEW FILE Y N If you enter N to this no action is performed If you answer Y you are prompted to ENTER NEW FILENAME gt You do not need to include the cho extension as it is forced upon your filename anyway Memory is cleared out and you can start work on a new file Transpose The transpose function is selected with the T key and allows you to move the entire song s chord structure up or down by any number of half notes For example to change a song that is normally played in the key of C up to a key of E you would transpose it up by 4 half tones C to C to D to D to E is four half tones bracketed chords and the key command are transposed When you type the T key you are prompted TRANSPOSING BY POSITIVE HALF STEPS MAKES THE SONG PITCHED HIGHER TRANSPOSING BY NEGATIVE HALF STEPS MAKE THE SONG PITCHED LOWER
14. cccecsessssececececseseacaececececsesnaesecececsesaaeeecececseeaseeececseseneaaesetececsesesaaeeeeseeeeesees VERSION 9 22 RELEASED SEPTEMBER 22 2003 VERSION 10 12 03 RELEASED OCTOBER 13 2003 E raaraa ee aa re rE a e rarae E Eren kea ae EE E eae Ea NE EEE Eeo Ee EEE ESEESE ETENEE IENE VERSION 10 15 03 RELEASED OCTOBER 15 2003 VERSION 11 29 03 RELEASED NOVEMBER 29 2003 VERSION 01 01 04 RELEASED JANUARY 8 2004 VERSION 03 10 04 RELEASED MARCH 10 2004 ccccccccccsssscecececsesensecececececsesececeecceesesaseseeeceesessaeceeseseseasaeseceeeeseaaeeeeseeesentaaeees VERSION 11 01 2010 RELEASED NOVEMBER 1 2010 VERSION 01 08 2011 RELEASED JANUARY 8 2011 ccccccssscccccecsessesscececececseseaececececseaaaeeeececeeseaaeseceeecseseaeseeeecesesensaaeeeeseeesenees Introduction Trancord a composite of transpose and chord is a multipurpose substitute for the UNIX based Chordpro program Trancord takes a cho ChordPro file with lyric and chord formatting and creates a reformatted output text or rich text formatted RTF file with the chords lined up above the lyrics The formatting options include extra space above the chord lines boldified chord characters five font sizes and single column portrait or
15. cers and are recreated in the output as single blank lines Any non braced regular lines that do not have chord bracket fields are reflected into the output files as a single line If you have a line that has no chords it might appear out of balance buried in a verse with chords Consider filling in the chords that belong on the line or put a NC no chord indication to force a chord line above the lyric line in your output Parenthetical Comments c commentary The commentary line puts the commentary text inside a parentheses and left justified in the output Many might ask why this is needed since you can just type some text with parentheses around them Why Because commentary lines are not transposed which would otherwise change the word or the word Giraffe if you tried to transpose it and it were included in brackets If you don t have brackets in a line then nothing inside it can be transposed Lyric Chord Lines nonblank lines that do not start with a or and not inside a sot eot construction are treated as lyric chord lines In a lyric chord line you include lyrics and bracketed chord or note structures that appear right before the syllable where the chord or note is struck See the example song below for examples Example Fictitious Song 11 t Bob Eats Fish s A pretty dopey song a Dave Jones and the Monotones k C c Each chord is a beat d C 135 8 Thi
16. d by doubling the longest line length and adding the inter column gap The gap is adjustable here and also inside the WYSIWYG viewer and can be set negative if needed F the font size setting toggles round robin through 8 9 10 11 and 12 point Courier New font Smaller fonts put more content on a line but are more difficult to read You may also adjust the font size from within the WYSIWYG viewer S the on off separator line feature toggles between including a blank line above all chord lines or not Having an extra line above chords can improve the readability of the song at the expense of more lines of output to have to put on a page T the top presentation margin setting allows you to specify how many inches of whitespace appear below the top edge of the page The top of the first line of text lines up at this margin You are prevented from setting the top margin closer than the hard printer margins specified in the Main Menu The portrait and landscape presentation margins are kept separate from each other You can see this by toggling the page format selection and seeing the two different margin settings This is done since you might like a large margin on the left in portrait mode and you might like a very small margin at the top of a landscape page B the bottom presentation margin is adjusted here Again you are prevented from specifying a bottom margin smaller than the hard printer limits L the left presentation
17. d the output for landscape format the first column is padded with spaces to line up the second column There is no true two columns it just looks like that If you generate a txt file it is important that you use a monospaced font when viewing or printing the file otherwise the chords will not line up with the lyrics When opening viewing and printing RTF files if your computer does not have the Courier New font you may change the font in your word processor to some other font that is monospaced Examples are Courier FixedSys Monospaced and Terminal 23 Generate Lyrics Portrait Text File This output option extracts just the title subtitle artist chorus commands text commands comments and lyrics from the file and generates a lyrics only output txt text file openable with any editor No chord or key information is included but all the normal commentary song format information is there This provides a very condense printable portrait oriented list of lyrics and instructions for singers who don t play an instrument or instrumentalists who don t use chords during the performance but need format information The output file uses the same filename as specified on the Filename main menu line but writes the output into a txt file instead From these output files you may open them with Word or Wordpad and apply any BIG font information you might like Main Menu Help Typing the key from the main menu
18. e formatted data What you see through the text mode previewer is what you will get when generating a plain text output The active keys are listed at the bottom of the previewer and are PGUP PageUp scrolls up one page toward the top PGND PageDown scrolls down one page toward the bottom HOME jumps to the first page END jumps to the last page ESC exits the text mode previewer Configuring the Output Formatter Typing the C key from the main menu brings up the Output Configuration Menu Here is an example OUTPUT CONFIGURATION MENU PAGE FORMAT PORTRAIT CURRENT LONGEST LINE 0 CHARACTERS GAP IN CHARACTERS BETWEEN MULTIPLE COLUMNS 4 FONT SIZE COURIER 11 SEPARATOR LINE ABOVE CHORDS NO TOP 35 INCHES BOTTOM MARGIN 6 INCHES LEFT MARGIN 7 INCHES RIGHT MARGIN 3 INCHES CHORDS BOLDIFIED YES VERSION DATESTAMP ADDED AFTER TITLE YES RELOAD DEFAULTS OUTPUT CONFIGURATION HELP EXIT OUTPUT CONFIGURATION XxNOQGADFWHNAD THESE SETTINGS YOU CAN PUT 53 ROWS PER PAGE YOUR ARE USING 41 COLUMNS OF AN AVAILABLE 117 COLUMNS The bottom line is presented in red if the presentation you have selected does not have enough column space on the page to present the entire width of the file This can be remedied by e Decreasing the font size e Decreasing the inter column gap e Selecting Portfolio page layout 20 e Breaking up
19. e musical notation as KEY above A space must follow the chord field and the text that follows is ignored IMPORTANT NOTE Define statements are NOT transposed Define statements are typically used to identify a guitar chord or how to play a particular nonstandard chord on a piano An example define statement might be define Em7 A 103020 Text Only sot The start of text command delimits text that is dropped into the output file unchanged Transposition cannot work inside an sot eot block No chord line will be added above a text only line If you want to put a bunch of lines of lyrics without chords you can put them inside a sot eot block As with all brace commands the sot must start in column 1 eot The end of text command turns off the text only block The eot must be in column 1 all by itself An example of a text block follows sot C Even though this has E C chords in it C it will not be transposed and won t have chord lines extracted This line will be sent to the output unchanged Blank lines are OK too eot Everything between the sot and eot is sent unchanged to the output file If you have no bracketized text in a text block then there is no real need to enclose it in a sot eot construction Lyric Chord Lines These hold the meat of your song The lyrics are typed in and chords are embedded within the lyrics using brackets to surround and delimit the chords Traditionally
20. eeeeesesaeeseseaaeeess 13 ES 14 EE E 14 SAVE 14 IRBAD HIDES 15 OPEN NEW FIBRES 20 6 Ares Re 15 E E 15 1 16 DATA 17 ED TTFORSHOW TOE sehr th MAI AEA cos SEA a EAA ARE abe ak 18 Ga OMG a Seem E 18 PREVIE WER 20 CONFIGURING THE OUTPUT FORMATTER cccccccccssssssscecececeessscaecececscsesnaeccecsessaaeaaececececsessasececescsesaaeceesececeeseasaaecececensaaeaesececeecsensaaees 20 MARGIN FOR PRINTERS oth ce ee AES TR TRG 22 GENERATE oegestudeuces OER 23 GENERATE LYRICS POR RAT E a E N 24 MAIN MENU A E A a E E R E EEI IERE 24 PROGRAM OE REEL EES 24 SOFTWARE 5 VERSION 9 20 RELEASED SEPTEMBER 20 2003 cccsscc
21. he normal key signature for that key Version 10 15 03 Released October 15 2003 e Adjusted the five font heights so that whe WYSIWYG viewer would reflect the same number of lines printed to a PDF in both portrait and landscape modes This eliminates the problem of it looks good on the tube why did the page overflow Version 11 29 03 Released November 29 2003 e Enhanced the transposer function to allow four chord separator characters space comma slash and now the greater than symbol Spaces are NOT trimmed out of a transposed chord now so that the spacing between chords remains the same after transposition Version 01 01 04 Released January 8 2004 Enhanced the transposer function to allow another chord separator characters So the valid separators are space comma slash greater than and the plus symbol Added warning in manual about forbidden characters in lyrics 25 Version 03 10 04 Released March 10 2004 The Lyric text file generator had a small problem with the col command It has been changed to drop a blank line in anytime the col command is encountered Version 11 01 2010 Released November 1 2010 e Windows XP and Vista and newer have altered the command shell interface to render older programs dysfunctional The program was slightly restructured and recompiled to run as a Windows graphical application Some control keys were removed or changed in the program The editor hel
22. ive When you first start the program a default ini file is generated Anytime you exit the Configuration Output option you are given the opportunity to save all your output options to the ini file If the program does not find the ini file it will create a default one The ini file is in plain ASCII text for readability however you should never need to read or modify it manually Main Menu When you start the program the main menu will appear as shown below the version number might be different If you started the program with a filename after trancord the filename will be in the filename line UNTITLED is the default if you do not provide a cho filename Trancord MAIN MENU BY Duane Becker VERSION 01 08 2011 FILENAME UNTITLED SAVE FILE READ FILE OPEN NEW FILE TRANSPOSE THE MUSIC IMPORT A LYRIC ONLY TEXT FILE EDIT RAW DATA WYSIWYG PREVIEW VIEW OF FORMATTED DATA ON SCREEN VIEW SINGLE COLUMN FORMATTED DATA ON SCREEN CONFIGURE OUTPUT STYLES MARGIN LIMITS FOR YOUR PRINTER GENERATE OUTPUT FILE GENERATE PORTRAIT LYRICS TEXT FILE HELP FOR MAIN SCREEN EXIT PROGRAM xXxVEOEZAQCSAHAHHODWNA 0 LINES IN MEMORY Main menu top line You will find the author and version number listed on the top line of the main menu Lines in Memory Annunciator at the bottom This indicates how many lines of source file cho are loaded into the program s memor
23. margin is adjusted here R the right side presentation margin is adjusted here 21 C the Chord Boldify toggle switch allows selecting whether chords and keys in your output rich text format file will be boldified Boldified chords make it easier to find the chords on the page as you play the song V the Version Datastamp toggle switch allows selecting whether a datestamp of the form mm dd yy is automatically appended after the title line The default setting for the version stamp is YES on This feature is useful for keeping track of versions of songs generated and printed The current system date is used as the datestamp D the defaults reloader key resets all the output configuration defaults to the program baseline settings the question key is the help key for the output configuration menu You are presented with help for each key function for convenient reference X the exit key returns you to the main menu You are asked if you want to save your output configuration changes to the initialization file If you answer the ini file will be rewritten with your settings Margin Limits for Printer There are three margin settings in this program e The hard printer margins e The presentation portrait margins and e The presentation landscape margins All three settings are saved in the INI file c trancord ini The margin limits for the printer are the absolute minimum margins for your printer
24. mply flow around the chord allowing you to reposition the chord as you see fit within the line Once you have it placed right where you want it press the F2 key again and the chord is affixed and unhighlighted Sure beats retyping and deleting old chords that aren t on just the right syllable of a lyric The PageUp and PageDown keys scroll up and down by ten lines keeping the working line right in the middle of the screen The Enter key since this editor is ALWAYS in Insert mode adds a carriage return before the character above the cursor underline If the cursor is at the end of the file it simply adds a blank line at the bottom of the file for more data entry If the cursor is at the beginning of a line it adds a new blank line before the current line If the cursor is in the middle of a line it splits the line pushing the characters before the cursor to the line above The Enter key is a great way to split lines that are too long for your desired formatting options The ESC key is the exit key for the editor All lines of data are trimmed on the right side of excess spaces before returning to the main menu EDITOR HOW TO Split a line Put the cursor on the character you want in the next line and type the ENTER key Join two lines Either put the cursor at the beginning of the second line and type backspace or put the cursor at the end of the first line and type the delete key Insert new lines Put the cursor at the end
25. n when entering your filename Any extension you supply is stripped off as cho is the default extension for Trancord files The prompt for the filename action is ENTER FILENAME gt _ Type the desired filename and then type the enter key The name is dropped right onto filename action line Note that specifying a filename does not read the file in You must use the Read operation to do that Save File The save file 5 action key first prompts you if it is OK to save your currently loaded file using the prompt SURE IT S OK TO SAVE THE FILE xxxxxxxx CHO Y N where is the filename specified on filename line You must respond with either the Y key or the N key to complete this prompt If you respond Y any existing file with that filename CHO is overwritten Be sure to save any changes you have made and want to keep using the Save action before exiting X the program No check is performed by the X exit action to see if you ve made any changes If you respond with N the file will not be saved 14 Read File This action is used to read a cho file of filename specified on the filename line into memory Any data loaded into the program is replaced When the read file action is triggered by the key the program determines if the file is available to read If it is not it responds with THE FILE xxxxxxxx CHO DOES NOT EXIST SO NOTHING WAS READ IN TYPE ANY KEY TO RET
26. nd subtitle is often combined on one line in the TITLE command as subtitle Artist Command a artists name Artist names will be automatically first letter capitalized and will be centered in the designated output column width Chord Notation All chords in Trancord are enclosed in square brackets and must start with the case insensitive note letter A through G The normal recommended convention is to uppercase the note letter but this is not required Note that if you transpose a chord the notes will always become uppercased and all resulting flats or sharps chromic scale and accidentals are converted to the appropriate sharp flat or whole note A lookup table is used internally to format the notes according the key you have selected using the key command If you do not put a key command in the source file a key of C is assumed A null no character is also considered a valid character when it precedes a compound chord separator for example A A sharp or flat comes next if needed as or lowercase b respectively If the sharp of flat is not needed no character is used After the optional sharp or flat comes extra text that is ignored by the transposition function except for the woe slash comma space character or greater than symbol gt Compound Chords and Separator Characters woe wow Compound chords must be separated at least one slash space comma greater than
27. or printer output device driver which can be obtained from the printer user s manual or from the output driver specifications These absolute minimums are used to prevent you from adjusting the presentation margins any closer to the paper boundaries than physically possible by your printer or printer driver For example the PDF writer in Adobe Acrobat typically specified a 0 25 inch all around margin limit In reality this margin is often too small for most ink jet printers and you might want to increase one or more edge margins Use the M key to enter the printer margin limits menu 22 PRINTER MARGIN SETTINGS THIS SHOULD ONLY BE USED IF YOU ARE CHANGING YOUR PRINTER YOU SET THIS ONCE FOR YOUR PARTICULAR PRINTER AS IT GOVERNS NOT YOUR DESIRED MARGIN SETTINGS BUT THE LIMITS FOR YOUR PRINTER YOU ARE PREVENTED FROM SETTING YOUR CUSTOMIZABLE MARGINS CLOSER TO THE PAPER S EDGE THAN THESE LIMITS TOP PORTRAIT MARGIN LEFT LANDSCAPE MARGIN 3 BOTTOM PORTRAIT MARGIN RIGHT LANDSCAPE MARGIN 6 L LEFT PORTRAIT MARGIN BOTTOM LANDSCAPE MARGIN 3 R X RIGHT PORTRAIT MARGIN TOP LANDSCAPE MARGIN 3 EXIT PRINTER MARGIN SETTING These four margins set the limits for both portrait and landscape modes and will most likely be different than your two sets of presentation margins Use the indicated keys to adjust the hard margin limits Use inches for the margins After setting your hardware margin limi
28. otes are flatted and which notes are sharped If you want to supress nontransposable comments in chords use underscores instead of spaces so that there are no interchord characters between the chord and the text The following lyric and chord will not be called out as nontransposable The C _lick Dog Barks Import The I key is provided primarily to allow bringing in any text file into the program memory It could be a text file of lyrics or a Trancord file with the wrong extension When you type the I key you are prompted IMPORTING LYRICS EFFECTIVELY ERASES THE CURRENT SONG ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO DO THIS Y N Answer N here to abandon the importation especially if you have unsaved data in the program If you answer Y you are further prompted ENTER FILENAME EXT TO IMPORT LYRICS gt 16 oo 99 Type and enter the filename and a dot and an extension for an ASCII file to import If the file does not exist you will be prompted SORRY THAT FILE DOES NOT EXIST TYPE ANY KEY If the file is found it is loaded into memory This feature is useful for getting non cho files into the program Edit Data The built in editor is accessed by typing the E key from the main menu At the bottom of the screen is a couple of annunciator lines to remind you which keys are available during editing HOMELINE ENDLINE TAB SHIFT TAB DELETE BACKSPACE F2 CHORDMOVER T CNTL HOME TOP CNTL END BOTTOM PAGEU
29. p key is now instead of F1 Version 01 08 2011 Released January 8 2011 Removed the print directly to printer feature It doesn t work for Windows XP and Vista Changed the editor help lines to show left arrow cursor key as lt and a right arrow cursor key as gt The original arrow characters previously used are not universal across all windows platforms 26
30. pops up a main help menu that presents a page that looks similar to the main menu The only difference is that when you type a key on the help page a brief tutorial on the use of the key is presented The main help menu is available anytime you are looking at the main menu To exit the main help menu and return to the main operational menu type the ESC or the X key Exit Program The X key quits the program Changes are not tracked so if you ve made changes to the song that you want to keep be sure you S save them before exiting the program 24 Software Version Changes Version 9 20 Released September 20 2003 e Adds a Version Datestamp when an output file is generated See Configuring the Output Formatter Adds the font size currently selected in the lower right corner of the WYSIWYG page Supported fontsizes are 8 9 10 11 and 12 Version 9 22 Released September 22 2003 e Draws the font size in the WYSIWYG before the page for quicker identification of the current font size e Supports uppercase F in WYSIWYG viewer for increasing the font size and lowercase f for decreasing the font size Version 10 12 03 Released October 13 2003 e Fixes a problem in the print direct to printer command Occasionally songs would be split for no apparent reason notes rule table was implemented so that when transposing into a new key the correct combination of flats and sharps would be shown for the new key based on t
31. rancord file is cho The fixed file extension for all output text files is txt The fixed file extension for all rich text output files is rtf Input and output files all use the same filename and are represented throughout this manual generically as Where you provide the filename on the FILENAME line of the Main Menu The cho file is a text file composed of any the following items Brace delimited commands Isolated non processed but printed text Music lyric and chord lines e Non processed and non printed text commentary e Blank lines Brace commands must start in column 1 with an opening brace and must have a closing brace No other characters may follow the closing brace Each of the elements in a chord file is described in the following pages The elements are all optional TITLE Command t your title title your title twhatever your title Titles will automatically have the first letter of every space delimited word capitalized Titles will be centered in the calculated output column width As an example if you have this line in your file t mega drop kick You will get this in your output file Mega Drop Kick SUBTITLE Command 5 506 title subtitle sub title swhatever sub title Subtitles will automatically have the first letter of every space delimited word capitalized Subtitles will be centered in the designated output column width To save a row the title a
32. s is an example only This line is not printed c Intro C C C C c Verse 1 C Bob E Eats G Fish G G Fish E Eat C Bob C col soc C Bob D likes E Fish E C Bob D likes E Fish E E Fish D don t like C Bob C eoc c Verse 2 C Bob E Hates G Fish G G Fish E Hate C Bob C c Chorus Use of the Trancord Program The Trancord program has quite a bit of online help available from any menu by typing the key When you are inside the editor typing the F3 key will bring up a page of help that describes the different command keys available within the editor Additionally at the bottom of the editor screen two lines remind you of what function keys are available Starting Trancord with a Filename You can start the Trancord program with a new song by just double clicking on the program To open and edit an existing cho song drag the cho file onto the Trancord program If you have created an association between file extension CHO and the trancord program you can start the program by just double clicking the cho file from a windows menu 12 Output Configuration ini File The Trancord program creates and uses a defaults configuration file trancord ini This file is kept in the root directory of your drive in C trancord ini The program does not detect where it has been installed so a logical place to put the initialization file is in the root directory of the C dr
33. t the lead chord doesn t change A m7 A sharp minor 7 The text after the or flat b is ignored by transposition B Perfectly OK but most people know this as C C E F G One possible four beat run CEGC Four chords in succession C E F A G C chord with bassline E then an F chord with bassline A then a G chord F G A method of indicating full measures by including extra space A 1 Can indicate strike a full stopped A then quick single hits to complete a measure gt Can indicate eighth notes in succession G gt gt gt gt C Can indicate a run from G down to C over a measure C C Can indicate adding a C to a C root chord or replacing the C in a C root chord with a C instead NC No Chord this indicates don t play anything during this section of lyrics Any nonchord text inside the brackets is still put in the chord lines for formatting but will not be transposable For example C7 This is a Em7 dummy lyric line lick is allowed to indicate doing some type of guitar lick after the word line and would show up as C7 Em7 lick This is a dummy lyric line The C7 and E minor 7 chords are transposable but lick will not be since it does not start with a note letter a through g If you want a comment like play a lick in the chord line and do not want it to be transposed the is considered a chord since it is preceded by a delimiter character and is of the charac
34. ter set A through G use underscores or some other character to prevent it from being considered a chord For example play_a_lick If you build a chord line with brackets and have no printable lyric content outside of the brackets then only the chord line will be sent to the output This allows you to build chord only phrases and verses without wasting a lot of print space on non lyrics If you really want the chords over spaces you must put at least one 99 printable nonspace character in the lyric portion of the line A good choice might be the minus sign Key Command k chord where chord is something like A or E for example The key command is transposable and can be used to identify the key of the song as you originally coded it up This way if the song is ever transposed the transposition will operate upon the key command as well and key it s in comment will remain true to the transposed song The key command results in a left justified parenthetical output statement in your output file that looks like this KEY OF C The key command also adjusts the note representations used for all the notes For example if you code up a song in C and transpose it up by one semi tone then the key command will be changed to k Db and flats are used instead of sharps in the notation Definition of Chords d chord define define chord define dwhatever chord define The chord field should be the sam
35. the cursor is at the very end of a line and the Delete key is typed the carriage return at the end of the line is deleted and the next line joins with the current line This is a convenient way to join the next line to the current line The Backspace key deletes the character to the left of the cursor and moves the cursor left while staying on the current undeleted character If the cursor is at the very top of the file nothing is deleted If the cursor is at the very beginning of a line and the backspace key is typed the carriage return from the previous line is removed and the previous line gets appended with the current line This is a convenient way to join the current line to the previous line The F2 key is the chordmover key It is used to select a bracket delimited chord or noteset and move it forwards and backwards in the current line then to drop it in place without having to retype the chordset To 17 use it use the cursor keys to put the cursor anywhere inside or on the bracketed chord to be moved like this example where the cursor is on the close bracket of the E chord C Dave E goes G fishing Then type the F2 key If the cursor is properly on or inside a properly paired bracket pair then the brackets and everything inside will turn red indicating it has been selected Once marked you may use the left and right cursor keys to move the highlighted chord to the left or right within the line and the text will si
36. ts use the X key to return to the main menu The trancord ini defaults initialization file is automatically saved when leaving this page Generate Output File The G key selects the output file generation utility You may generate either a rich text formatted RTF output file or an ASCII text TXT output file An RTF file has a number of features that make it attractive to including more formatting on the page For example the sheet size and orientation portrait or landscape are included in an RTF file as are the commands that boldify the chords if you have selected that option in the configuration page Additionally the font selection Courier New and your chosen font size is included in the file Almost all word processors can read and print from RTF files including WordPad Word Framemaker Lotus Wordpro and a host of other word processing programs If you want to convert the output to a PDF or other form the RTF file is probably the most widely accepted formatted file form When you start the output generation you are prompted GENERATE R RICH TEXT FORMAT RTF OR P PLAIN TEXT TXT FILE If you type R the file xxxxxxxx rtf where is your working filename specified on filename line is generated in the working directory folder If you type P the file xxxxxxxx txt 1s created instead The TXT file will not have bold chords or a specified font or size or page formats If you have configure
37. y space There is room for 500 lines of information for the loaded file The data is retained in composite mixed lyric and chord format and can be saved at will to the cho filename specified in the FILENAME line 13 Menu Keys All the functions in this program are activated by keystrokes The keys are not case sensitive and are associated with the first letter of the action they perform to help create a key to function memory associativity to help the user All the function keys that are active are shown on the various menus along with a brief summary of the function The key activates the online help menu for that menu except in the editor since the character might be important in a lyric More will be said about the editor help in the editor section When you press a function key from any menu a prompt will appear requesting information from you Some of the action items take place immediately Note that in this discussion the filename specified on the FILENAME line will be indicated by xxxxxxxx for ease of discussion The default of UNTITLED is used when you start the program without specifying a filename Filename The Filename action key F prompts you for a filename to associate with the cho file You would use this action to specify an existing file to load or to specify a new name to file the current file under Your filename should not use any of the forbidden filename characters You do not need to specify an extensio
38. you should place the bracketed chords immediately before the lyric character that takes the beat of the chord Some people like an extra space in front of the chord if the chord is at the front of the line That is they might like the output like this Bob eats fish instead of C E G Bob eats fish The easiest way to do this is to code up this line remembering that the chord lines up over the next character in the lyric as B C ob E eats G fish The text editor included in the program makes moving chords within a line very simple The editor has a help function accessed by the F3 key Read the built in help about the editor s F2 function key 2 command for grabbing and moving chords around in a line This is also covered later in this document Forbidden Characters in Lyrics You should not include the open or closing brace characters or in a lyric The rich text format uses the braces to indicate a cluster of commands and including them in lyric lines confuses Microsoft Word when it encounters a brace character in a text line Parentheses and OK to use If you do accidentally put an open brace in a lyric line and generate a rich text format RTF file and try to open it with Word you will get an error message indicating the file is damages or some other nonsense Use the WYSIWYG viewer in to ensure that you didn t put a brace where you really wanted a
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