Songbook maker

This repository provides scripts which I use to make printable songbooks out of songs using latex package.

NOTE: Using content of this repository may be painful without any tex knowledge or without any linux experience! In case of troubles, feel free to contact me...

Dependencies

Apart from obvious dependencies, this package depends on the tex package https://www.ctan.org/pkg/songs . Under most distributions, it is contained in texlive-music package.

Input

Expected input format is plain text with chords specified in brackets. The file is expected to begin by an underlined song name. The rest of the file is considered to consist of verses. Empty line denotes separation of verses.

Currently, the script is sensitive to bad number of empty lines - e.g., there should be no empty lina after the last verse.

Hashes denote comments and are removed from the file before parsing.

e.g.

    Drunken Sailor
    ==============
    [Dm]What'll we do with a [Dm]drunken sailor,
    [C]What'll we do with a [C]drunken sailor,
    [Dm]What'll we do with a [Dm]drunken sailor,
    [F]Early [A7]in the [Dm]morning?

    R: [Dm]Hoo ray and [Dm]up she rises
    Hoo ray and up she rises
    Hoo ray and up she rises
    Earl-aye in the morning

Formal definition of format is provided in included FORMAT.md file. The format is meant mainly as a proposal intended for sharing of song databases.

Metadata

Metadata may be specified in header, i.e., prior to the underline. The syntax is '##:'. Currently supported keys are:

'title' - same as specifying song name in plain syntax
'author' - author/interpret to be drawn
'_autocols' (internal) - integer which indicates that the songs fits well into the number of cols
'_widthmode' (internal) - indicates width of the page - either 'narrow' (standard 1-2 cols) or 'wide' (3 cols)
'_narrowcols' - integer - overrides number of columns if widthmode is 'narrow'
'_widecols' - integer - overrides number of columns if widthmode is 'wide'
'_version' - any string meant to denote the version of songbook in which the song was added - is printed in the content and in additional info of a song
'_imgbegin' - adds illustration from imgpath at the first page of the song (as a background scaled to the entire page), --imgpath required, only in narrow mode
'_imgend' - adds illustration from imgpath at the last page of the song (as a background scaled to the entire page), --imgpath required, only in narrow mode
'_clearpage' - clears page after the song (usefull for illustrations)
'_ignore' - skip the entire song

All the above keys may be overriden, however, only those not marked as internal are supposed to be overriden!

example:

    ##title:Drunken Sailor
    ##author:unknown
    ##_narrowcols:3
    #we believe that such formatted song fits even three columns 
    ==========
    [Dm]What'll we do with a 
    [Dm]drunken sailor,
    [C]What'll we do with a 
    [C]drunken sailor,
    [Dm]What'll we do with a 
    [Dm]drunken sailor,
    [F]Early [A7]in the 
    [Dm]morning?

Output

Output is writtent into the working directory and consists of:

landscape A4 pdf with 3 columns
portrait A5 pdf with one or two columns (this is automatically recognized)
booklet A5 pdf (printed from the other A5 pdf)
if --doublesided option is specified, then the same poratrait and booklet A5 in double sided setup - these provide an extended 10 mm binding offset (margin at the inner side) and clear pages in order to keep songs on neighbouring sides.

Installation

The script depends on the other files in its relative path, which means that either:

You will have to call it with full path.
You will have to put a proxy somewhere into your path. E.g., put the following file into /local/bin/songbook_maker and make it executable (with chmod a+x /home/...)
```
  #!/bin/bash
  /home/me/my_path/make_songbook $@
```

Usage

The preferred way is to copy the /testdir folder somewhere and customize the content.

Invocation of the songbook_maker expects a name (e.g., a reasonable filename), a version (anything you will want to denote the version) and path to a header tex file. See testdir/myhead.tex for example content. You will most likely wish to copy it somewhere and change the text. You should not need anything more.

The songs are supposed to be stored in one or more folders in separate files. The scripts accepts them via standard input, which means that it may be invoked as follows:

    find songs1 songs2 songs3 | /...path.../make_songbook dodatky-zpevnik ./myhead.tex "v3"

This allows simple creation of difference songbooks for printing. My full build script follows:

    #the sort sorts the songs by file name
    find songs songs2 songs3 songs4 | sort -t '/' -k 2 | ./make_songbook dodatky-zpevnik ./myhead.tex "FULLv3"
    ../extract-index template-a5.dvi > ../dodatky
    mv output-a5.pdf ./dodatky-zpevnik-a5.pdf
    cp ./dodatky-zpevnik-a5.pdf ../dodatky-zpevnik.pdf
    mv output-a5-booklet.pdf dodatky-zpevnik-a5-booklet.pdf
    mv output-a4.pdf dodatky-zpevnik-a4.pdf

    find songs | sort | ./make_songbook ./ ./myhead.tex "DIFFv1"
    mv output-a5.pdf ./dodatky-zpevnik-a5-diff1.pdf
    mv output-a5-booklet.pdf dodatky-zpevnik-a5-booklet-diff1.pdf
    mv output-a4.pdf dodatky-zpevnik-a4-diff1.pdf

    find songs2 | sort | ./make_songbook ./ ./myhead.tex "DIFFv2"
    mv output-a5.pdf ./dodatky-zpevnik-a5-diff2.pdf
    mv output-a5-booklet.pdf dodatky-zpevnik-a5-booklet-diff2.pdf
    mv output-a4.pdf dodatky-zpevnik-a4-diff2.pdf

    find songs3 | sort | ./make_songbook ./ ./myhead.tex "DIFFv3"
    mv output-a5.pdf ./dodatky-zpevnik-a5-diff3.pdf
    mv output-a5-booklet.pdf dodatky-zpevnik-a5-booklet-diff3.pdf
    mv output-a4.pdf dodatky-zpevnik-a4-diff3.pdf

    find songs4 | sort | ./make_songbook ./ ./myhead.tex "DIFFv4"
    mv output-a5.pdf ./dodatky-zpevnik-a5-diff4.pdf
    mv output-a5-booklet.pdf dodatky-zpevnik-a5-booklet-diff4.pdf
    mv output-a4.pdf dodatky-zpevnik-a4-diff4.pdf

Debug

Even though I am trying to sanitize inputs as much as possible, the build sometimes fails. In that case, use the '--debug' mode to test compilation of files. When you have the file, search for unclosed braces, unusual characters or other problems and either fix the TEX template in this project or fix the file or add another sanitization into the make_songbook script (...).

If you are a tex expert, you may wish to meddle with tex. The script basically takes the files and rewrites them into tex notation into two files named content*tex (in project's directory, not in the working directory). Then, latex is executed on one of the templates.

Format conversions and Utils

Unfortunately, most tab/chord pages provide only pure plain text format. Bracket export is one the most standard ones, but still rarely provided and due to the nature of the problem, automatic conversion is not easily achievable. For this reason I also provide a set of tools which I use for conversions between the formats. Details are to be found in folder utils.

kareltucek/songbook_maker