I’m finally at a point where I feel like I’m complete with this first major release of the tool and can get back to my normally scheduled life.
A huge thank you to everyone who tested it out, gave feedback, or reported bugs.
ABC Transcription Tools is a free, web-based, open-source tool for converting music in ABC format to standard notation and tablature.
It runs 100% client-side in your browser. You can even copy the source code from the GitHub link below and run it locally on your computer. No server required.
It can generate PDF files as well as URL Share links and QR Codes for sharing your tune sets with others.
The demonstration video below shows:
Importing an ABC tune set
Tablature options
Exporting to PDF files
Generating a QR Code for sharing
I’m a relative novice on low whistle, and I’ve been using the tool the last couple of days to pick out settings of tunes that will give me a bit of a challenge but aren’t beyond my skill level. For quick visual scanning I find tabs easier than dots, and it’s great to be able to load in several settings and see immediately which ones I can play, and also which ones offer up some of the variations that a more experienced player would be able to add themselves.
Given the time it still takes me to get on top of a new tune, I’ve got several weeks’ work cut out already!
A huge bunch of updates and a complete UI rework this weekend to make the ABC tool much easier to use, particularly with larger sets of tunes.
New features added 19 Feb 2023 include full screen mode, ability to show/hide the controls while editing, a much better experience viewing and editing tune sets with many tunes (ABC editor and controls now stay at the top, with tunes scrolling below), and capo fret offset control for stringed instrument tablature.
ABC Transcription Tools is a free, web-based, open-source tool for converting music in ABC format to standard notation and tablature (with optional capo offset for stringed instruments).
It can generate PDF files as well as URL Share links and QR Codes for sharing your tune sets with others.
You can also transpose tunes up or down in semitone increments.
This demonstration video shows:
Importing an ABC tune set
Full screen display
Tablature options
Exporting notation to a PDF File
Generating a QR Code for sharing
ABC Transcription Tools is now (finally!) able to export PDF tunebooks with one tune-per-page or intelligently layout multiple tunes to fit on each page.
I improved the PDF save in the ABC tool for iOS and Android devices.
The default save routine in jsPDF used to replace the current tab with the PDF and people were confused what to do with it. Plus, if you did a browser back command you’d sometime lose your ABC work in-progress.
Now on mobile, the tool asks if you want to download it and then it ends up in your “Files” app downloads directory.
From there you can view the file right in Safari or do whatever you want with it, like export it to a PDF reader like GoodReader or share it.
PDF generation on Firefox seems fine, just the on-screen display is cutting out staff lines and note stems. I’ve sent an email to Paul to see if there might be a way to fix it on Firefox.