This is a description of a Share-Ware utility called CHORD. It's purpose is to provide guitar players with a tool to produce good looking, self-descriptive music sheet from a text file. CHORD read a text file containing the lyrics of a song, the chords to be played, their description and some other optional data to produce a PostScript document that includes: Centered titles Chord names above the words Graphical representation of the chords at the end of the songs CHORD also provides support for Multiple logical pages per physical pages ( 1, 2 or 4) Configurable fonts for the lyrics and the chord names Multiple songs inside one file The complete ISO 8859-1 character set and Chorus marking NEW IN VERSION 3.5 o Generation of PostScript indexes. o Generation of PostScript chord-charts. o Additional 'comments' style (box and italic). o Directive to set a monospace font (ie: not-proportional) suitable for tabs. o Support for A4 paper format. o Page numbers are now "physical page numbers". o Chord-charts (-dump option) now include chords from .chordrc file. o Option to print/not-print page numbers. o Option to print/not-print chord grids. o Option to print grids only for "difficult" chords. o Directive to force a physical page break. o Directive to force a virtual page break. o Chords are printed in a logical order. o Special chord [N.C.] (no-chord) without a chord grid. o New (and improved!) {define} syntax. o Chord names and directives are case-insensitive. o Public domain getopt() routine (for portability). o (almost) lint free (better portability) o Ansi-C compliant o ... and bug fixes NEW IN VERSION 1.2 o More flexible Page Numbering o Left/right o always-present o an option for simgle spacing on lines with no chords o Distinction between an unplayed string and a buffed one o TOC generation o Some bug fixes NEW IN VERSION 1.1 o CHORD supports transposition. See the man page. o miscellanious bug fixes, including dubious coding that kept IBM and SGI from executing CHORD properly o the grids now indicate string played open o Error messages noe correctly report the name of the file and the line number where the error was found ===== PLATFORM ===== CHORD has been developped on SPARCStations running Solaris 2.2 and OpenWindows 3.2. The PostScript previewer (PageView), SparcPrinters and LaserWriter II have had no problem with the output. Please report any changes your system requires. ===== CREDITS ===== CHORD has been developped and is still being maintained by Martin Leclerc and Mario Dorion. CHORD uses the GNU getopt() routine made available to the community by the Free Software Foundation. We would like to thanks the following individuals: Steve Putz, who has kindly contributed a number of suggestions, bug fixes and enhancements(?). Jim Gerland (GERLAND@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu), who has performed the initial VMS port. Leo Bicknell (ab147@freenet.acsu.buffalo.edu) has provided the chord sorting routine. Additional thanks to Fred handloser (and his pal Duncan) and many others for providing many suggestions of features that were implemented in CHORD 3.5. ===== COMPILING ===== CHORD is written in fairly portable C and should work on most UNIX systems with little or no change. Let us know of your problems. Simply edit the Makefile to meet your environment and 'make'. Note: If your environment does not offer a getopt() routine edit the Makefile to de-comment the lines (INCL, SRC and OBJ) that mention the included getopt routine ... We reccomend using your system's getopt() if it is available. ===== ARCHIVES ===== James B. from the University of Nevada (nevada.edu) has graciously open the doors of their ftp site for archiving songs in CHORD format. Look for files with the '.chordpro' or '.chopro' extension. ===== COPYRIGHT ===== CHORD is a Share-Ware that is licensed following the conditions of the general GNU license. You are authorized to use this program free of charge. You are authorized to distribute this program freely as long as the full source is included. You are not allowed to remove the `copyright' notices from the authors nor are you allowed to pretend you wrote it. You are not allowed to charge any money for CHORD. You are not allowed to distribute a modified version of CHORD without written authorizations from the authors. You are not allowed to use parts of CHORD in any other commercial or public-domain software. Sorry for all the negatives rules ... but we've been bitten once! As we said, CHORD is a Share-Ware. The authors spent a great deal of time making it as feature-full and usable as possible. If you like this program, please take the time to send a postcard from your home town or locality to each of the two authors and let them know what you think of CHORD. Please send the cards to the following addresses: Martin Leclerc Mario Dorion 19 Browning 18 Georgia Crescent Dollard des Ormeaux Pointe Claire Quebec, H9G 2K5 Quebec, H9R 5V7 CANADA CANADA Martin Leclerc (Martin.Leclerc@canada.sun.com) Mario Dorion (Mario.Dorion@canada.sun.com)