Skip to main content

Export & Import

There are two ways to export songs from this app:

  • Export: format for computers, for moving data from one computer to another
  • Download: format for players, for playing, printing, sharing

Both live behind the same Download button. You pick which one you want in the dialog it opens, so you do not have to decide before you can see the choices.

Export​

Exporting is generates JSON file, where will be everything you selected. It's a small database of songs and songbooks. The file is easily editable in a text editor of your choice.

You can find it in Songs and Songbooks wherever there is a Download button, as the Achordeon file option. You just need to select some items.

The first line of the file says where the app that wrote it lives: "app": "https://achordeon.eu/app/". The app itself never reads that line - it is there for whoever finds the file a year later and wonders what opens it.

Download​

Downloading is little bit more complicated. The basics are:

  • download song(s): selected songs in a desired format, the songs will have aspect ratio from its setting or from global settings
  • download songbook: selected songbook in a PDF format, the page size will be custom or A4 by default and the songs will keep their aspect ratio, but will be scaled to fit on the page

A single song can be downloaded as a PDF or an image (PNG). Multiple songs can be a ZIP of images, ZIP of PDFs, or a single multi-page PDF. A songbook is a PDF or a ZIP of images, one per song.

The PDF is vector: its text stays text, so it can be selected, searched and printed at any size without going fuzzy. The fonts are embedded in the file, so it looks the same on a machine that does not have them.

To move or safeguard your whole library at once, rather than a selection, use Backup in Settings.

Import​

You can import all exported and downloaded files. The downloaded files has metadata that is the same as the exported files. This metadata can be lost if you edit the files.

The metadata rides in the PNG, one file that is both the picture and the song. A PDF carries none, so import a PDF's song from the Export JSON or from the image.

The rules of importing are as follows:

  • Importing songbook will always create new songbook, even if the names are the same.
  • Importing songs will give user options to replace, ignore, or create new. You can also import all songs as new with date tag as a prefix

There are three ways in, and all three end at the same preview:

  • the Import button in Songs or Songbooks, which opens the file picker
  • a file dropped anywhere on the page, several at once being offered one after another
  • a link, which opens the preview already filled in

The Achordeon file is written as .achordeon now. Files already exported as .json still import, and the picker accepts both.

Alongside the file, the Download dialog offers a Link. It is copied to the clipboard, and the song travels inside it, so nothing is uploaded and nothing is fetched when it is opened. Tapping it opens the import preview on any device, installed app or browser tab, online or not.

A long selection will not fit in a link: something along the way cuts it short and it arrives unreadable. When that happens the option is greyed and says so, and the file is the answer instead.

Writing a song with an AI assistant​

The file format is published, so an assistant can write one for you. The schema lives at achordeon.schema.json. Hand it that and ask for an Achordeon import file.

There is also a ready-made skill, which teaches the markup and carries Achordeon's own parser so the assistant can check its work before handing it over:

How to install each one is in the AI import guide.

Whatever writes the file, the import preview tells you before anything is written how many of the songs have markup Achordeon could not make sense of, so a stale skill, or an assistant that never had one, is something you find out about up front rather than on the page.