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csv format for import

Posted: Sun Jan 10, 2010 10:23 pm
by lex
We use a xcell spreadsheet (which can be saved as csv file) with different columns like a column for lyrics, column for cross reference info, col for author (txt), col for song no. etc. What should the column headings and column order be for successful importation of songs? Be as specific and complete in terms of all possible fields.

Posted: Sun Jan 10, 2010 10:46 pm
by Sebastian
The supported fields are:
LYRICS, LYRICS2, TITLE, AUTHOR, COPYRIGHT, CCLINR, PRIKEY, KEY

The first row must contain the headings in *uppercase*. The order is not important.

PRIKEY or KEY should contain the key. You can use any of the two, but not both.
LYRICS contains the text of the song. If the LYRICS column of a song is empty, SongBeamer will look at the LYRICS2 column if it exists. Lines that contain chords must start with a ".". A line that does not contain chords must not start with a ".".

Separate columns with a ";" or a ",". Use the " as the escape character if the text of a column contains a comma, semicolon or line break.

All headings except for LYRICS are optional. If there is no title, SongBeamer will use the first line of the text as title.

Posted: Tue Jan 12, 2010 3:13 pm
by lex
Just for clarity. Do you mean that a line with chords must start with "." including the "" or do you mean it must start with . excluding "" ?

Thanks for the rest of the information, it helps a lot.

Can songbeamer also export all the songs in csv format and will it use the above fields to do so?

Posted: Tue Jan 12, 2010 3:24 pm
by Sebastian
It is excluding the "", but your row would usually start with a " so that you can have line breaks in the song. You could skip the " if your song has only one line, and does not contain a comma or semicolon.

There is no export function at this time. The SongReport plugin from our homepage can export a table with the songs to Excel, but that does not include the text of the songs.

Posted: Tue Jan 12, 2010 9:37 pm
by lex
can you just give me an example of a song with a few lines because I do not follow you so well, if you don't mind.

Posted: Wed Jan 13, 2010 9:00 pm
by Sebastian
We have created a special version of SongBeamer which can export the songs to the csv format as well. You can use it to create a sample csv file.

http://www.songbeamer.com/bin/SongBeame ... _Forum.exe

This version also fixes a few issues with reading the csv files correctly.

Posted: Thu Jan 14, 2010 3:16 pm
by lex
Sebastiaan
Thanks for all your help, effort and quick responses
greetings
lex