Songs: songbooks, new songs and moving from another program

Songs get into your church in three ways: from shared songbooks, typed or pasted by you, and moved over from the program you used before. It all starts in the browser: Music → Songs.

A new church already has 16 public-domain English hymns (tag starter). Keep them for practice or archive them.

Songbooks: a whole songbook in one click

1. Music → Songs, Songbooks tab.
2. The Not added filter shows the songbooks you don't have yet.
3. Open a songbook and click Add to church. You'll see “Added “…”: N songs”.

Songbook songs aren't copied. They're the same songs other churches use, so when we fix the lyrics or sheet music in a songbook, the fix reaches you by itself. Your own changes (e.g. a different key or a corrected line) stay with you only. If you've changed a song's lyrics, a songbook fix won't overwrite them. The song page then offers Use songbook lyrics, and Restore songbook version undoes all your changes. Your version stays in the song's history.

• A songbook marked Protected has a rights holder. Click Request access and the songbook's keeper decides. Once access is granted, you still click Add to church.
• Remove from church takes the songbook out of your Songs. Unused songs disappear from the list. Songs used in plans or changed by you are archived and come back if you add the songbook again.
• The Owner and the Administrator can add songbooks.

Songbook songs don't use your church's file storage.

You can also make your own sets of songs, e.g. for the youth group or a retreat. See Church songbooks.

A new song

Music → Songs → New song. Fill in the fields:

• Title, Author, Key, Tempo (BPM),
• Copyright, CCLI number and Copyright status (Licensed, Public domain…),
• Status: Draft, Active (the default) or Archived,
• Tags — comma-separated, e.g. “worship, communion, upbeat”.

The Tags field swallows the comma as you type. To enter several tags, write the whole list somewhere else and paste it in.

In Text (ChordPro) mode, just paste the song's lyrics into the ChordPro box. Smart paste recognizes verses, the chorus and chords written above the lyrics on its own. The bar above the box adds + Verse, + Chorus, + Bridge and [ chord ]. On the right is the Preview: Chords or Slides. This is how the song will look on screen. Click Save.

If you'd rather type it by hand, this is what ChordPro looks like:

{start_of_verse: Verse 1}
[G]Amazing [C]grace, how [G]sweet the sound
{end_of_verse}
{start_of_chorus: Chorus}
[C]Glory [G]to God
{end_of_chorus}

A chord goes in square brackets right before the syllable it sits over.

The song page

A song has the Content, Chord variants, Form, Personal keys, Attachments and History tabs.

• Form is the order of parts you actually sing, e.g. V1 C V2 C B C ×2. The slides, the stage display and playback all follow it. Other forms are for other occasions, e.g. a short version.
• Chord variants are other chords for the same song, e.g. “Simple” for beginners. The slides always come from the original.
• Personal keys record who sings the song in which key. When that person leads vocals in a plan, the plan and the charts suggest their key.
• Attachments are things like PDF sheet music, MusicXML or audio.
• History lists earlier versions of the song (up to the last 50). Restore brings back the whole song as it was: the lyrics together with the title, key, tags and status. The current version stays in the history.

More about form and variants: Support.

A second layer of lyrics (e.g. Spanish under English) is the Translation mode in the editor. On the projector you turn it on with the Second language field (see Running a service in Show).

Songs from files

Music → Songs → Import:

1. Drop the files (or Choose files). The app reads OpenLyrics, OpenSong, SongSelect, ChordPro, ProPresenter 7 (.pro), plain text (.txt) and .zip archives, up to 5 MB per file.
2. Under Import as, choose Drafts — review before use or Active songs.
3. Click Import selected.

A whole library from another program

Settings → Data import (Move your data from another program). Only people with access to church settings (Owner, Administrator) can run this import. Choose the source and click Choose →:

• OpenLP — with the songs.sqlite database file,
• EasyWorship — with an .ewsx export,
• OpenSong — with the whole folder or a .zip file,
• WorshipTools — with a bookmark in your browser. Step-by-step guide: Move from WorshipTools.

Planning Center is on the list too, but it isn't connected yet. It shows a “Demo mode” note and sample data, not your library. Don't paste your token there and don't import the samples.

You always see a preview before anything is saved. Songs you already have are marked. Imported songs arrive as drafts (status Draft) with a source tag. Review them and set the status to Active. The exception is WorshipTools: its songs are active right away. To review them first, tick Save songs as drafts in the preview.

ProPresenter and an OpenSong folder are easier to move in the desktop app: Importing from another program on the computer. If you use the ProPresenter tile in the web wizard, it says .pro7, but ProPresenter 7 song files end in .pro, and those are the files to choose.

Searching

The search box above the list takes a title, an author or a number, e.g. 121, and a number from a specific songbook with its letter, e.g. w156.

What's next

• Service plans and serving rosters
• Songs on screen: slide split, text size, form and quick fixes