Advice about usnig Tablets instead of four ring binders.

[Silly Moustache]

Not wanting to hijack Imsharris's thread about Ipads - I'd appreciate some advice about this.

Obviously no-one is doing any gigging, in the UK at least, since March, and for the foreseeable future.

At one time, I had a binder of songs for each of my bands - a bluegrass band, two trios and my solo repertoires.

All of my "cheat sheets" are made in MS word, in 14 pt, and, of course, have notes about introductions, harmonies, who takes what break etc.

Obviously some songs appear in more than one rep., but arrangement. key and "notes" varied.

I read the thread (mm - a modern rhyme!) about this onsong programme, and watched a couple of Y/T videos but none answered this question :

How would/could I transfer Word docs (complete with reminder notes) from my desk top to a tablet?

n.b I said "tablet" because apple products will never accept my email addresses.

Thanks in advance.

[Goat Mick]

Copy and paste from Word into an email and then copy / paste from the email into OnSong. That's the way I do it anyhow.

[ssjk]

you should be able to save from MS word as a .pdf (basically an image rather than a bunch of code). Save each of your files as a .pdf and it will usually show as FILENAME.pdf without affecting the word file.

Then you can import all of your individual songs into your app of choice. I have used UnRealbook, which works fine for .pdfs and is quite inexpensive.

I have converted all of my files to SongBook by Linkesoft. That will handle .pdf as well and would work fine. I converted everything to chord pro format, which provides a bunch of flexibility for transposing etc. Overkill for just moving images from hard copy to a laptop, but nice for me. Not very pricey either.

You can also scan the hardcopy and import each of the scans if you have a bunch of hand written notes.

[jovy1097]

I use Mobile Sheets Pro on my tablet for all music. The way I usually transfer MS Word documents to this is by printing them to a PDF. PDF documents can easily be transferred to any tablet and most music sheet programs.

[rllink]

Originally Posted by jovy1097

I use Mobile Sheets Pro on my tablet for all music. The way I usually transfer MS Word documents to this is by printing them to a PDF. PDF documents can easily be transferred to any tablet and most music sheet programs.

I do the same, MobileSheets Pro, change my docs into pdfs and transfer them over from Dropbox.It is as easy as can be.

[MikeBmusic]

I use MobileSheets as well (Windows tablet). I format the lyric/chord sheets in Word, save as PDF, then use Dropbox to move the files to the tablet.

[Skarsaune]

I use SongBook on an older Samsung tablet.

To transfer files from a pc, I just plug a usb cable in, then drag/drop them to the songbook folder. Couldn't be easier.

[Dru Edwards]

Originally Posted by ssjk

you should be able to save from MS word as a .pdf (basically an image rather than a bunch of code). Save each of your files as a .pdf and it will usually show as FILENAME.pdf without affecting the word file.

Then you can import all of your individual songs into your app of choice. I have used UnRealbook, which works fine for .pdfs and is quite inexpensive.

I have converted all of my files to SongBook by Linkesoft. That will handle .pdf as well and would work fine. I converted everything to chord pro format, which provides a bunch of flexibility for transposing etc. Overkill for just moving images from hard copy to a laptop, but nice for me. Not very pricey either.

You can also scan the hardcopy and import each of the scans if you have a bunch of hand written notes.

+1. So easy to save everything as PDF.

Silly - Another option is to scan everything into your computer (need a scanner or a printer with scanning capabilities) and save it as PDF. That way your handwritten notes are included.

[rstaight]

Install a Microsoft app and you may not need to create a PDF.

[ljguitar]

Hi silly mustache man

As you've probably discerned, there are many ways to skin this 'cat'.

If you are not open to using an Apple tablet, then 'OnSong' is out of the picture, and 'Mobile Sheets' is a viable Android alternative.

Mobile Sheets has less features, but most of us old guys are not needing all the extra features some apps offer.

The biggest things I've had to edit is making sure the lyrics and chords align.

The great thing is you have your sheets already stored in a format which is still recoverable, editable, and can be converted to other formats.

So many old players have only handwritten copies - which are more-time-consuming to deal with. Handwriting is often 'soft' and hard to read on a screen.

All my songs are stored in three places in the Cloud as well as on two backup hard drives.

I'm likely going to switch all my songs to a new app this year, and I'll do it from my original formatted versions.

Have fun if you decide to make it a project which brings you in touch with the 21st century tech.

[Psychopasta]

I use Microsoft's OneNote as my binder for songs. Then I store individual songs using .doc, .pdf, graphics I screenshotted in, etc. It's very flexible about data formats and it works on just about every platform there is.

If you have an Office365 subscription (or whatever its called now) then you can install the whole MS suite on up to five devices at one time

[FrankHudson]

PDF is probably a good idea for a format, but various tablet applications may dictate what is the best format. Sounds like your song Word files are like mine: 14 point typeface (and I'll bet you're using Courier so that things line up monospace/typewriter style too if you're like me).

If so, monospaced font like Courier, plain text (.txt) format will line up just like it in Word. Sometimes there are issues with 'carriage return" and "line feeds" kind of things (were you get everything in double spaced) but plain text is the still the most compatible thing even if you loose other stuff.

If you have handwritten notes etc, scanning to PDF is indicated.

However, I read your question not what format to use, but how to get the dang things over to a tablet. Option for that include:

A small flash storage card. Apple doesn't have card slots, but many other tablets do. You can get a small card slot things that plugs into a USB port on your computer and quickly move files over to it. Another reason you may want to go that route: many inexpensive tablets are skimpy with storage space, so having the files on a microSD card (a common size used by tablets) means that you can have lots of stuff and not end up trying to put a quart in a pint glass.

Another popular option is "cloud storage." I use OneDrive (Microsoft's cloud storage, even though I have an iPad) because I get a ton of storage along with my Office sub, but Google, Amazon, Apple, and Dropbox are other variations of the same thing. An advantage is that there's some level of data protection there and your files are available anywhere you have an Internet connection (like someone asks you for that arrangement of song xyz, and you are able to retrieve in in a browser or send a link to it).

Hope any of this helps.

Oh, your no Apple thing, due to an strange email issue. You can create new Apple iCloud email address for free to associate with your Apple account. That doesn't mean that you can't use your existing address with a mail program on your tablet. I mention this not to promote Apple, but because their tablets are actually a value for the money proposition in the current market.

[Peter Z]

As I wrote in the other thread, OnSong is the reason why I‘m still using iPads. I tried quite a few of those songbook apps and OnSong was the best by far. I’m using it for many years now.

If you decide for OnSong, copy and paste from a word document or from any internet page is very easy. In OnSong you can decide about font size, how to show your chord symbols, transpose and many many more things.

If you don’t have your notes in word in another text column they will be just copied too. You can have them in different colors, sizes or whatever.

Setlist are easily done and you can have different songbooks in one app.
Backups are easy as well. Also the export of songs, setlists or all songs in different formats.

The automated scrolling function is also nice.

If you like you can send me a few of you word files, I will import them and show how it looks in OnSong.

[Akousticplyr]

OnSong also allows you to download directly from a linked Dropbox folder.
I add new lyrics sheets from a PC into Dropbox, and then import into OnSong directly from the app. It’s also nice to have them available via cloud for any device, sharing etc.

[Elwood38]

Originally Posted by MikeBmusic

I use MobileSheets as well (Windows tablet). I format the lyric/chord sheets in Word, save as PDF, then use Dropbox to move the files to the tablet.

Don't you use "MobileSheets Pro Companion" to move your PDFs to "MobileSheets Pro" on your tablet? It's a very useful App. and a free download from the MobileSheets website.