Use the Lyrics & Chords editor to create and edit chord charts for a song arrangement. After you make the charts, they are automatically transposed and added to the arrangement. Numeral and Number charts can also be automatically generated.
Select Lyrics & Chords to open the editor and add lyrics or chords.
From the editor, enter your lyrics and chord charts on the right, then use the options to ensure the lyrics and chord charts look the way you want them to look in the preview on the left.
Add your text to the box on the left in one of four ways:
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Type it in from scratch.
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Copy and paste from another document.
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Import lyrics from SongSelect, and then add in your own chords.
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Import a text chord chart from PraiseCharts and customize it.
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Original Key: This is the key for the original chart you entered.
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ChordPro: You can enter your chords in line with your lyrics by placing them in brackets, as demonstrated in the verse. This is called ChordPro and ensures your chords align perfectly with your lyrics, even after transposing or changing fonts. The Original Key will determine how the chart is transposed and can be changed using the Original Key dropdown.
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Standard Chords: You can also place your chords on a separate line from the lyrics, as shown in the chorus. This is simpler, but if you change fonts or keys, chords can shift slightly and won't always stay aligned with the correct syllable.
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Transposed Key: To preview a transposed version of your chord chart on the right, select the key dropdown and choose a key. You can also select the download button to save a PDF of those transposed charts.
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Preview: The live preview on the right automatically refreshes to show you exactly how your chord and lyrics appear when you print or view in Planning Center Music Stand. To not constantly have your chart refresh on the right while you're typing in your text, you can click the Auto-refresh button to turn it off.
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Saved File Types: To create PDFs for number or numeral charts or a separate PDF with just lyrics, click the buttons in the upper right corner.
Notice
Number or numeral charts can only be created by saving a chord chart PDF. Numbers and numerals can't be added to the file while editing it.
Number charts are commonly used by studio musicians who must be ready to play a song in any key. Instead of having twelve chord charts all in different keys, you only need one number chart. Chords are replaced by numbers based on the scale of the key you are in. In D, 1 = D, 2 = E, 3 = F#, and so on. Then, just by saying you are now in E, the musicians see 1 and now play E instead of D.
Numeral charts are a little different. In a numeral chart, if your chord is major, the numeral is uppercase, but if the chord is minor, instead of showing the 'm', you use a lowercase numeral. In the key of C, II would be D major, but ii would be D minor.
For both numbers and numerals, if you use a chord or note not in that key, it will be represented using flats. So, in the key of C, if you have a G#, it will show as b6 or bVI instead of #5. Likewise, E/G# would be 3/b6 or III/bVI.
When you have a C2 chord, we'll put the 2 in superscript to make it clear this is a 12 chord and not a 12 chord. Superscript chord suffixes on number and numeral charts make it easy to tell what is the chord and what is the suffix.
The Options menu above the chord chart includes buttons to insert page breaks, column breaks, and the code to help you remember how to bold or italicize words or phrases.
Your changes are saved automatically as you type. If you make changes and decide to undo them, you can choose Revert All Changes from the Options menu to undo all changes made since you first opened the editor.
Tip
The More Codes button links the Special Codes article with more information on formatting codes.
Select the formatting button to open the formatting toolbar.
You can change the print and formatting settings for this chart. Organization administrators can update the default settings for the Lyrics & Chords editor.
Select the back button in your browser or the top left back arrow to return to the song arrangement page, where you'll see your Planning Center Lyrics & Chord charts with the rest of your files. Once you've entered lyrics and chords, you'll see Lyrics, Number, and Numeral Charts as arrangement files and regular chord charts and capo chord charts as key files.
To transpose the chart into another key, select Add Key to create a main key and capo chart.