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  #1  
Old 05-27-2022, 07:27 AM
Silly Moustache Silly Moustache is offline
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Default Elderly man cautiously embracing tech seeks help.

I have an enormous repertoire of songs, all written in MS Word.

This means that the old four ring files "donated" by a former employer, are getting heavy, over full and tiresome.

More and more folk are coming to my club with "tablets" (I take five every night but these are the modern things.

My cheat sheets are not copied directly from Ultimate Guitar or whatever and many have had written arrangement notes on them.

I have no idea how all my songs could be transmitted to a tablet, or whether I should consider an apple or a MS type tablet (I'd need the largest possible screen size as, (like I said - I'm elderly).

When I ask these youngsters how they did this they look at me and mumble strange incantations in Vulcan or some such.

Am I too old to consider this possibility?

Any advice?
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  #2  
Old 05-27-2022, 08:07 AM
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M19 M19 is offline
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I think scanning to pdf would make sense. Samsung makes a 14.6" (diagonal) tablet, which I think is the biggest currently available.
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Old 05-27-2022, 09:02 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by M19 View Post
I think scanning to pdf would make sense. Samsung makes a 14.6" (diagonal) tablet, which I think is the biggest currently available.
I have a similar plight, but not as many volumes, however most are my own concoctions of the tunes I'd do on a solo gig.

this is exactly what I'd do too,, scan them and use some kind of transfer service like drop box or one drive to make them available to the tablet device.
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Old 05-27-2022, 09:02 AM
drtedtan drtedtan is offline
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I agree, I would scan them to PDF. Then you tablet can display them just as you’ve printed/written on them.

I’d offer to help, but the costs involved in shipping your charts to Texas would probably be cost prohibitive.
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Old 05-27-2022, 09:11 AM
Tahitijack Tahitijack is offline
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I'm not a technology expert but can't you buy the largest tablet add MS Word app and transfer your MS Word files to the new tablet? Please don't laugh at me...I have little knowledge in these things as I am still using a gig book with sheet music in plastic sleeves.
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Old 05-27-2022, 09:19 AM
Harmony123 Harmony123 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Silly Moustache View Post
I have an enormous repertoire of songs, all written in MS Word. ... More and more folk are coming to my club with "tablets" ...

My cheat sheets are not copied directly from Ultimate Guitar or whatever and many have had written arrangement notes on them.

I have no idea how all my songs could be transmitted to a tablet, or whether I should consider an apple or a MS type tablet

Any advice?
At this point, I'd ask others to show you how they use their tablets, and see if anything clicks with how you like to organize your collection. Once you've seen how 3 or 4 other people do it, you'll get a feeling for what's involved.

I personally use an iPad Mini with SongBook to hold my 350 songs. It's much more convenient than binders.
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Old 05-27-2022, 09:31 AM
Chipotle Chipotle is offline
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Here's a super quick-n-dirty method:

* Buy tablet. Make/model does not matter, unless you have a preference or are doing to use it for other things. Get one as large as you need.

* Use the tablet's camera to photograph the pages out of your binder.

* View pages on tablet with whatever "gallery" or picture viewer app is on the tablet.

Now, the downside to this is lack of organization. The gallery/viewer app might allow you to create albums, either to group songs by some category, or possibly by song if many have more than one page. But it would likely be limited.

If you want something more organized, probably with more helpful features specifically for categorizing music, I second Harmony123's suggestion that you ask people you see using tablets what specific apps they are using to manage things.
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Old 05-27-2022, 09:42 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tahitijack View Post
I'm not a technology expert but can't you buy the largest tablet add MS Word app and transfer your MS Word files to the new tablet? Please don't laugh at me...I have little knowledge in these things as I am still using a gig book with sheet music in plastic sleeves.
yea,, probably would be doable IF the table OS supported the install of MS Word or some kind of software compatible with MS OFFICE suite.

I think there are some software downloads available for just this kind of setup.
like what would be found in Play Store for any kind of Andriod device
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  #9  
Old 05-27-2022, 10:08 AM
Malcolm Kindnes Malcolm Kindnes is offline
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I'd stick with the paper and memory method. Just because new technology is available it doesn't mean we have to embrace it. Besides, it's good for your brain to remember things.
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Old 05-27-2022, 10:17 AM
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I use MobileSheets Pro on a 10" Kindle Fire. Not because I think it is the best, but because I found myself in the same circumstances and I had a 10" Kindle Fire. I am very comfortable reading books on the Kindle, so it wasn't a big leap to go from the binders to reading the music on it. You are going to have to convert everything to PDF format though to get it to work.

My wife is very high tech and plays bass guitar. I don't know if she thinks my way is the best way, but she jumped on it so we can be on the same page and hasn't tried to change me over to something else yet.
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  #11  
Old 05-27-2022, 10:26 AM
imwjl imwjl is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Silly Moustache View Post
I have an enormous repertoire of songs, all written in MS Word.

This means that the old four ring files "donated" by a former employer, are getting heavy, over full and tiresome.

More and more folk are coming to my club with "tablets" (I take five every night but these are the modern things.

My cheat sheets are not copied directly from Ultimate Guitar or whatever and many have had written arrangement notes on them.

I have no idea how all my songs could be transmitted to a tablet, or whether I should consider an apple or a MS type tablet (I'd need the largest possible screen size as, (like I said - I'm elderly).

When I ask these youngsters how they did this they look at me and mumble strange incantations in Vulcan or some such.

Am I too old to consider this possibility?

Any advice?
Microsoft Word files aren't any different on a PC, tablet (Android, Apple, Surface) or Mac. Cloud sync and storage makes it all seamless.

We (my department) manages all this for staff whether company or their individual staff. The Microsoft Surface family puts it in what's a Windows PC and tablet at same time. We have 200+ iPad, Surface and Android tablets to know differences, goods and bads. A few features make the iPads winners but some of our vendor solutions require the Android tablets.

Many do not want paid tier cloud and programs but that can ease some sort of transition or conversion even if short-term.

Being too old might only be a matter of mindset. My 90 year old mother bought a newer iPad recently and on her own got everything set up with help of Apple Store and phone support. My mother in law could not get over or bury the cognitive biases that made it difficult. I find this problem with people in their 40s too!

I use all the popular platforms but for personal use value the features where Apple and Microsoft are ahead of Google and in some cases Microsoft too. For example I run some phone and tablet apps on my laptop. I like the way data and files cut, copy and paste between devices. Apple battery life is near or just downright untouchable by most competition.

This might help if same in UK. The Apple Store near our HQ office has a lot of classes I see retired people attend. They do hand holding that way. My 90 year old mother praises the stores and phone help for all they give her.

If you are an Android user Drive will accept your Word files and you can start saving them in Google's format. Still, with Android and a Surface Pro, that's not as elegant or easy as I find using same apps across my Apple laptop, phone and tablet.

The Windows 11 releases keep improving the mobile/desktop integration matters. There are premium Chromebook too.

Good luck.

Edit: Google and Microsoft have scan to text features that help. Apple's got that and a major one up where you can select and copy text out of static photos. Microsoft OneNote uses this feature so that also helps utility and data migration. I keep a lot in a notes app over having a mess of files to manage.
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Old 05-27-2022, 11:55 AM
Bob from Brooklyn Bob from Brooklyn is offline
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I've recently started using MobileSheets Pro on an Amazon Fire. I don't think I'll be going back.
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  #13  
Old 05-27-2022, 06:02 PM
drtedtan drtedtan is offline
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MS Word docs can be opened (and edited) on tablets, but the hand written notes the OP mentions won’t transfer unless the hard copies are scanned into a computer/tablet. From there, he could run OCR to get an editable document to store in Word format if he wants.
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Old 05-27-2022, 07:45 PM
Chipotle Chipotle is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by drtedtan View Post
MS Word docs can be opened (and edited) on tablets, but the hand written notes the OP mentions won’t transfer unless the hard copies are scanned into a computer/tablet. From there, he could run OCR to get an editable document to store in Word format if he wants.
Yeah, given what I've seen of most people's notebooks of lyrics and chord charts, with scribbled notes, a few tabs here and there, and some in traditional music notation, I'm not sure I'd bother with Word or any other sort of conversion. Scan it to PDF, or even just take a picture as I mentioned, to get a literal image, and be done with it.
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Old 05-28-2022, 06:30 AM
imwjl imwjl is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Chipotle View Post
Yeah, given what I've seen of most people's notebooks of lyrics and chord charts, with scribbled notes, a few tabs here and there, and some in traditional music notation, I'm not sure I'd bother with Word or any other sort of conversion. Scan it to PDF, or even just take a picture as I mentioned, to get a literal image, and be done with it.
There's no need to scan Word files to .pdf or take photos of the printed Word files when Word saves the native files as .pdf. Over and over I see people waste labor with that.

Even if one has an ancient copy of Word and is in the '97 file format, one can get 365 accounts starting at $5 to $10 a month and do it all with more ease with better results with a little money spent.

I see versions or variations of this a lot volunteering on a team that assists some nonprofits and people with technology. Over and over we see people banging their heads against a wall with laborious crappy looking results vs just save the Microsoft Word files as .pdf.

We also see this labor suck matter at at work where people do laborious versions of print and scan and photograph and email when many programs save as .pdf and their computers print to .pdf. Our OP might have the print to .pdf option or which to buy a month or two of software that does that.
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