Anybody have a link to a good place to get ABC reading software?
Feel free also to opine as to which program is best and why. 
Thanks much,
Doc
http://abcnavigator.free.fr/ is well regarded, reads, plays does it all for free.
However: I use ABC2Win more, possibly out of habit (ABC2Win won’t print without licence but reads fine in the free version).
Thanks Peter. I downloaded it and gave it a try. Works well.
Ron
Could someone also suggest the best ABC packages with graphical input for Linux (especially Ubuntu) and Mac OS computers?
Thanks,
Oreo Phil
You can copy and paste a ABC tune into http://www.concertina.net/tunes_convert.html
and you can get a midi and sheet music. It won’t work with ABC files on your computer, though, unless you can open them to copy them.
Howdy,
I use Barfly and Melody Assistant for Mac. Barfly does most everything I want.
Best,
Dave
For editing and playing, I use AbcMus. For rendering, I use abcm2ps to convert ABC to Postscript, then use Ghostscript to convert Postscript to PDF. If you want an all-in-one package (edit, play, view, print), ABC2Win works fairly well. I don’t use it anymore, though, because it doesn’t handle lyrics in a way I like.
You can find a large list of ABC software at http://staffweb.cms.gre.ac.uk/~c.walshaw/abc/.
The thing with abc and Linux/Unix is that you dont need any GUI’s 
Runabc will get you most things you’ll need, simple, fast and will work with any Linux/Unix system.
The Knoppix clone Esclinux is a free bootable CD including all you need for abc notatin (and fiction writing).
There has been some ideas discussed to put together a “ChiffLinux” with abc and audio apps. Who knows …
/MarcusR
since 2006 - 2008 is a life time or two in the computing world, does anyone have any new info on ABC programs for linux? I noticed a program called lilypond, but I can’t seem to make it work.
Lilypond is a complete music typesetting system, much more powerful than just ABC software. That said, when I tried it as ABC software (an automatic conversion program is included, I believe) a year or two ago, I was extremely disappointed in the results. As I recall, basically it ignored the note beam information implied by the ABC and the resulting notation was extremely ugly.
For what it’s worth, I use jcabc2ps with some extensions I wrote myself. It produces lovely Postscript (see the Dots or PDF links from the link in my sig for examples) but doesn’t have a GUI. Also there’s some sort of Postscript font glitch on Macs – I’m hoping to track it down next week.
Lilypond includes “abc2ly” for conversion but I don’t know how good the conversion is as I don’t use it.
I still use Runabc
http://ifdo.pugmarks.com/~seymour/runabc/runabc.html
or just abc2ps, abc2midi from clw
For abcm2ps on Mac OS X - try Fink
Gonzato updates his web site “The ABC Plus Homepage” frequently so that is a good source.
/M
abc explorer does the trick for me in a clunky, occasionally crashing windows way.
stay hoopy
Mike
TablEdit works for me. Use it all the time and have for years. It has never yet managed to crash or lock a computer on me.