What is the best practice for scanning documents into my OnSong library?

What is the best practice for scanning documents into my OnSong library?

Scanning songs is a fast way to get your music into OnSong. However, different scanner settings can create files that are too large for devices with limited memory and processor speed to open. Many scanners can perform at very high resolutions and color depths that can slow performance or cause OnSong to crash due to the limitations of the device.

For instance, many scanners today will default to a 600 DPI scan resolution and scan in full color. This means for each page in a scanned document, the system will need to process around 100 MB of information. While the final PDF file may not appear that large due to compression technology, it does expand to that size when the system is processing and displaying the document. If you have a set full of multiple page documents, this can quickly use up all of your device's working memory.

Older iPads have 512 MB of system memory or less. Newer iPads have 1024 MB or more which makes a big difference. However, the best way to achieve great performance is to adjust your scan settings.

We recommend that you scan your documents at 300 DPI or less and use greyscale instead of full color. For instance, a page scanned at 200 DPI and greyscale will use only 4 MB of memory instead of 100 MB. This will let you view the document at a resolution that works great on the iPad, fit more songs in your device and greatly improve performance.

You can also adjust some settings in OnSong to improve performance until you can rescan those documents. To do this, go into the Utilities menu (gear icon) > Settings > Display Settings > Song Viewer > Renderer Version and set that to New. This will use less memory, but may result in slower performance when performing the song. You can also turn off the "Render Ahead/Behind" feature so that OnSong is not preloading next and previous songs in the set. You can find these settings in our user manual at:
http://onsongapp.com/docs/interface/menubar/utilities-menu/settings/display-settings/song-viewer/renderer/

With these tips, you should be able to take music that you own on paper and convert it for fair use within the OnSong app. Also consider using text-based chord charts to make the most out of OnSong and achieve the best performance.

Hope that helps!

    • Related Articles

    • Can I import scanned documents into OnSong?

      Scanning songs is a fast way to get your music into OnSong. However, different scanner settings can create files that are too large for devices with limited memory and processor speed to open.  Many scanners can perform at very high resolutions and ...

    • How much space do I need for my OnSong library?

      OnSong is designed to store content you import on you device. This allows OnSong to work in live scenarios when an Internet connection may not be present. Most of the time these files take up very little space. OnSong works best with text-based chord ...

    • OnSong deleted my library when it updated. What gives?

      OnSong cannot delete your library or remove songs due to an update.  The underlying database structure may be upgraded, but that does not effect your library.  It is possible that an update from the App Store could have failed which can cause issues ...

    • How do I make OnSong automatically backup my library?

      To enable automatic backups, you can set this up for OnSong by opening the Utilities Menu by tapping on the gear icon in the Menubar and choosing Backup. This will open the Backup Screen where you can configure OnSong for automatic backup. Export ...

    • How do I backup my OnSong library to Dropbox?

      First, ensure that you are backing up your device to either iTunes or iCloud. We recommend iCloud since it backs up automatically and in the background. If your iPad is ever lost, damaged or stolen, you can sign into your Apple ID with a new iPad and ...