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🎵 TL;DR - Quick Formatting Rules

For Google Docs:
  • Use page breaks (Ctrl+Enter / Cmd+Enter) to separate songs
  • Put the song title on the first line of each page
  • Use consistent formatting for song titles (same font, size, style)
  • Avoid empty sections between songs
  • Keep titles clean - no chords, metadata, or extra text in title
For Google Spreadsheets:
  • First column: "Song" or "Title" with song names
  • Second column: "Artist" or "Origin" with artist names
  • Additional columns: Vocalist, BPM, Duration, Key, Genre, Link
  • Special columns: "Chords" or "Lyrics" columns become gig documents
  • Links: URLs in any column are automatically detected

Detailed Formatting Guide

⚠️ Important: Make Your Document Public!

Before importing, you must set your Google Doc or Spreadsheet to "Anyone with the link can view".

  1. Open your document
  2. Click the "Share" button (top-right)
  3. Under "General access", change from "Restricted" to "Anyone with the link"
  4. Set role to "Viewer"
  5. Click "Done"

Privacy Note: This allows viewing only - no one can edit your document except you.

1. Song Separation

Each song should be separated by a page break (Ctrl+Enter on PC, Cmd+Enter on Mac). This creates a visual separation that our parser can detect.

To verify your songs are separated properly:

  • Turn on non-printing characters:
    • Mac: View → Show → Non-printing characters (or Cmd+Shift+P)
    • PC: View → Show → Non-printing characters (or Ctrl+Shift+P)
  • Look for this after each song: -------- Page break --------¶

2. Song Title Format

The first line of each page should contain only the song title. Avoid adding:

  • Chords (G, D7, C, etc.)
  • Metadata (Chords by, Author, etc.)
  • Extra text or descriptions

3. Consistent Styling

Use the same formatting for all song titles:

  • Same font family (Arial, Courier, etc.)
  • Same font size (12pt, 18pt, etc.)
  • Same font weight (normal, bold)

4. Content Structure

After the title paragraph, you can add:

  • Lyrics
  • Chord charts
  • Notes and instructions
  • Any other song-related content

5. Common Issues & Solutions

Problem: Songs not being detected

Solution: Ensure each song starts with a page break and has a clear title in the first paragraph.

Problem: Too many sections skipped

Solution: Remove empty paragraphs or whitespace between songs. Each section should have actual content.

Problem: Song titles include extra text

Solution: Keep titles clean - just the song name, nothing else.

6. Example Structure

[Page Break]
Song Title (first paragraph)
[Content continues...]

[Page Break]
Next Song Title (first paragraph)
[Content continues...]

7. Testing Your Format

After formatting your Google Doc:

  1. Save the document
  2. Make sure it's publicly accessible
  3. Try importing it
  4. Check the summary panel for section counts
  5. If sections are skipped, review the formatting

Google Spreadsheet Formatting

Column Structure

Google Spreadsheets use a column-based format. Here's what we support:

Required Columns:

  • Song / Title: The first column should contain song names. We recognize column headers like "Song", "Title", "Name", etc.

Optional Columns:

  • Artist / Origin: Second column with artist names. We recognize "Artist", "Origin", "By", etc.
  • Vocalist: Who sings the song
  • BPM: Beats per minute
  • Duration: Song length (e.g., "3:45")
  • Key: Musical key (e.g., "C", "Am", "F#m")
  • Genre: Music genre
  • Link: URLs to chord sheets, videos, audio files, etc. We recognize "Link", "URL", "Cheat", etc.

Special Columns:

  • Chords: Content in a "Chords" column will be automatically converted into a chord sheet gig document
  • Lyrics / Words: Content in a "Lyrics" or "Words" column will be converted into a lyrics gig document

Link Detection:

  • URLs in any column are automatically detected and added as links
  • Links to known chord sheet sites (like Ultimate Guitar) are marked as chord sheets
  • Links to personal websites are automatically scraped - if they contain chord notation, they're converted to gig documents

Example Spreadsheet:

Song          | Artist    | Key  | BPM | Link
--------------|-----------|------|-----|----------------------------
Wonderwall    | Oasis     | Em   | 120 | https://ultimate-guitar.com/...
Hotel CA      | Eagles    | Am   | 110 | https://example.com/chords.html
Tip: Column names are case-insensitive and we're flexible with variations. "Song" or "Title" both work, "Artist" or "Origin" both work, etc.
Note: For Google Docs, our parser works best with documents that have 150 songs or fewer. For very large documents, consider splitting them into multiple files. Spreadsheets can handle larger datasets.