When you import text content info OnSong from programs like Microsoft Word or Apple Pages, it's likely that your chords will not align with the lyrics underneath. If you've copied and pasted the contents of these files in OnSong Console, exported the file as plain text from the program, or extracted the file within the OnSong song editor, you will likely need to move the chords back to their original position. Why is this?
The Reason
The reason for this is in how the document was authored. Typically a chord chart is written with a font that looks good when printed such as Arial, Times New Roman, or Helevtica. These fonts are known as "variable-width fonts" because each character in the font is a different width. This allows the font to be more readable and looks like a nicely typeset document instead of an old-style typewriter. In this type of font, the SPACE character or a lower case "i" is much narrower than other characters such as a capital "M". When chord charts are written in standard fonts, the author places the chords above lyrics on the line below using spaces. This results in about 40% more spaces being used to align chords above the words underneath.
You can visualize this problem by changing the font of the document within the word processing application to another. You'll notice that the chord will shift position, especially if you use a "fixed-width" font such as Courier.
Another issue that can occur is if the author used TAB characters to align chords. The TAB character in a word processing document results in chords being aligned on a ruler according to tab stops. For instance, you can set a tab stop at 1" and 2". When the TAB character is encountered, the chord would be shifted to precise positions based on the ruler. Plain text documents have no concept of this since they are not intended for the printed page. This can result in TAB characters being found in your text-based chord charts in OnSong. Since tab stops are not transferred with the text file, the meaning of these are unknown. OnSong will typically convert TAB characters to align the chord every 8 spaces. This is likely inconsistent with the original document and can cause alignment issues as well.
The Solution
So what can you do to convert your files into the OnSong file format? First, if you're editing your document in a word processor, use a fixed-width font and only use space characters to align chords. You can then export the file as a "plain-text" document to import into OnSong. You may also want to disable a feature called "smart quotes" in the word processor as that can add characters that are not compatible with all operating systems.
One quick way to edit documents is to use
OnSong Console. This is a web-based tool available as an add-on within OnSong. You can copy and paste from your word processing program into the song editor in the console and then use a full keyboard and mouse/trackpad to edit the document. As you type, the preview updates. You can then click "Save" to have the song automatically added or updated on your device.
You can also use the
Song Editor in OnSong. If you've imported a word processing document, open the
Song Editor by tapping on the pencil icon in the
Menubar. The text editor will contain only the title of the song. Tap on the
Extract Text button in the
Conversion Toolbar at the bottom of the editor to have OnSong extract the text from the document. This may result in chords spreading out to the right. If this happens, tap on the hammer icon in the
Menubar to open the
Text Tools Menu and locate the
Fix Alignment Spaces button. This will bring the chords back closer to their position. You can then use the arrow keys and delete or space keys to adjust the chords.
You can also turn on the
Preview Widget in the
Menubar by tapping on the eyeball icon. This allows you to preview as you type and make changes as necessary.
When finished, tap on the Done button to save changes in the
Song Viewer. If things don't work quite right, you can always switch back to the word processing document until you have time to finish the text-based chord chart. To do this, open the
Song Editor again and turn on the
Use the imported file instead of OnSong switch in the
Conversion Toolbar and tap Done. This will let you toggle between the imported file and the text-based chord chart.
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