ABC to PDF question

Tech
1

Hi,
I’m looking for a way to create a PDF page with 2 or more tunes on it (without going through a lot of hoops).

For single tunes I use the beloved Tune-O-Tron Converter. But I’m looking for a way to print a set of 2 or 3 tunes on one page.

I have the ABC2Win software which which will do the job in its native format but, to my knowledge, I can’t print to a postscript file from that programme, or convert one its pages to PDF.

In the past I have created individual PDFs for each tune, then cropped each page and imported the PDFs into a page layout software. However I’m looking for an easier solution.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Frances

2

I’ve done this with ABCexplorer. The program allows one to place the desired tunes into a temporary list and then export that list into a .pdf file. I can usually get three 16 bar tunes onto one page. Did I mention that this is a free program?

3

Hi Bill,
Thanks for the suggestion. Exactly what I was looking for.

Cheers, Frances

4

I use BarFly on the Mac - the “paid for” version does what you want.

Pat

5

ABCM2PS is a dos program that will convert abc files to PS files. It does a beautiful job and it’s not too difficult if you understand how to run a command line program. You can throw it at a folder and it will convert everything in it.

It’s been a while, but I think it will use the X: numbers to put them together in sets on pages. There are a number of configuration options, but the defaults seem to work pretty well.

6

You can use Skink (http://celticmusic.ca/skink.html) (ad free!) to call abcm2ps on any platform. Barfly will do it on the Mac, and some of the PC programs will too, but I don’t know which. You can also call abcm2ps from the command line if you know how to do it. There are lots of options in abcm2ps that help you control layout and you can get as many as 5 or 6 tunes on a page (if you have young eyes). Once you’ve set up something to call abcm2ps you can create a format file to do the work the same way for different sets of tunes; or you can put the formatting commands in at the start of the file. Check out ABCPlus manual from http://abcplus.sourceforge.net/ for lots of information and up to date abcm2ps files.

7

This is an example how you can get 2 or more tunes together on tune-o-tron:
ABC Convert-A-Matic.

X: 1
T: Kesh, Sliabh Russell, Tell Her I Am
M: 6/8
L: 1/8
K: Gmaj
P: Kesh
|:G3 GAB| A3 ABd|edd gdd|edB dBA|
GAG GAB|ABA ABd|edd gdd|BAF G3:|
B2B d2d|ege dBA|B2B dBG|ABA AGA|
BAB d^cd|ege dBd|gfg aga| bgg g3:|
P: Sliabh Russell
K: Ador
|:eAA Bcd|eaf ged|edB cBA|BAG ABd|
eAA Bcd|eaf ged|edB cBA|1 BAG A3:|2 BAG ABd||
|:eaa efg|agf gfd|eaa efg|afd e3|
eaa efg|agf gfd|edB cBA|BAG ABd:|
P: Tell Her I Am
K: Gmaj
e|:edB G3|DED ~G3|DED c2 d|BGE E2 e|
|edB ~G3|DED ~G3|AGF GBA|1 GFE D2 e:|2 GFE D2 A|
|:~B3 dBG|~B3 dBG|ABA ABA|AGF E2 c|~B3 deg|
|age d2 B|cBA GBA|1 GFE D2 A:|2 GFE D3|
|efg efg|dBG GBd|e2 a aga|bge e2 d|efg efg|dBG Gef|
|gfe gba|gfe d3|efg efg|dBG GBd|e2 a aga|
|bge e2 A|def gba|gfe d2 B|cBA GBA|GFE DBd|

Needs some work for editing thouh.

8

http://music.gordfisch.net/montrealsession/editor.php

9

For the truly adventurous, there’s always https://github.com/colomon/ABC, which is the source of my (currently under development) Perl 6 code for translating ABC files to Lilypond. I successfully used it to turn 25 ABC tunes into a very nice looking eight page PDF this morning. There are at least a couple of bugs in the output still (I know that double bar lines and DC markings disappear from the final output for sure, and accidentals aren’t fully implemented) but the output is very nice looking, IMO.