Printing Songbook Problems

Hi Jim - Have you tried going to File / Page Setup from your browser - in both IE and Fireox, you can change your margin settings from there. Set the left margin to 1" (or 1-1/2") and you should be good to go.

ETA - roger beat me to it . I also do the same thing with clear sheet protectors, makes my printed song book much easier to manage.

Jim...The suggestions from Topdown and Roger would be the ideal option.  I understand the frustration however if you can't get into your printer margin settings from the browser.  I have two other options for you... neither are "great" but they both should work.  I would have waited to see if their options worked first, but you did ask me to look at the thread specifically...so... here we go!

Do you have the SongBook software yet?  It's free... but it's worth whatever price they charge to register it if you wish.  You can find it here:  http://linkesoft.com/songbook/

So in Chordie from the song's page click on Chopro on the right (near the print button).  This gives you the formatting (computer language) that was used.  Chopro formatting is based on TEXT not pictures or tables ... so you have to do this the old fashioned way by putting spaces in if you can't get to printer margin settings (I don't see anywhere to set printer settings in this program either.  I was really hoping they'd be in there... but I don't see anything for margins.).  Copy the chopro formatting from chordie and paste it into SongBook (creating a new song).  Paste this in on the edit screen (from the edit tab in SongBook - tabs are at the bottom, edit and view)...

*before you go any further ... try printing this as is and see if you can get into your printer set up before continuing - while there's no "page setup" or "printer setup" feature in the file menu... sometimes just attempting to print will bring up some options for you it all depends on your printer* 

now get your thumb ready, put spaces in before each line (you'll have to fiddle with this to find what will work right for your needs to get the words over far enough for the holes... maybe 7 spaces?).  Anyhow, once you've done this and go back into the View tab you will see all the words have been pushed over (well, technically they just have a bunch of spaces before them, but hey... you can hole punch thru space!).  This *should* print out well for you... but I'm not making a promise on that one.  Sometimes spaces print out funny in programs and I haven't tried printing songs out like this myself.  This is just my idea that might be a work around for you not being able to adjust printer margins.

On another note... you COULD just go into your printer settings on your own and change the default printer settings... THEN go to chordie and print the song out.  Just remember to change your default settings back when you're all done, or else everything you print will be done with those settings!  This would probably be the *easiest* way around the issue if you know how... but if you print songs haphazardly here and there then it could be a pain in the tush... plus, the SongBook software is kind of fun to play with and organize your songs on your computer... not just on Chordie!   

Good luck!  Let us know what worked... I am hoping that you can just access your settings from the browser the way the guys have suggested however!

Amy

Jim, totally understandable that your computer guy doesn't like internet explorer.  Sadly... it's so common in use that the hackers have preyed on it more than any other browser out there.  If you want to, you can download Mozilla Firefox from here: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/firefox.html

I personally use Google chrome for most of my surfing as I had problems with firefox in the past (although I do have firefox on my computer... I really should try using it more as clearly a LOT of other people are using it and not having problems with it... maybe my original installation was just no good and I'm biased against it for bad reasons).  There is no easy way to get to printer settings in chrome either.

You are welcome Jim.  I hope that you have luck with the work around(s) I suggested.  I'm not a computer guru or anything... I just like to think outside the box sometimes!  There IS at least one computer guru on the site however that I know of, so if you need other help just ask.  It's amazing the help you can find from the members on Chordie sometimes!  The songbook software is pretty basic in looks... but it sure can come in handy if you have a lot of songs that you want to organize (and EDIT!  whoo hoo)  in ways that you just can't quite do with the songbook feature on Chordie.  Feel free to email me if you need more help!

Jim I'm glad you were able to get things to work for you.  Well... you do KNOW that Chordie is safe... so... you could use internet explorer JUST for Chordie at home... well... when you're printing songs that is... there are outside links within the forum that you may be at risk occasionally by clicking.  At least that's a decent work around for you that's not TOO difficult!  I guess you'll just have to get back to work at work and leave the printing for home! 

Maybe a new post targeted to MAC users about the printing issue at work will yield results for you?  I don't know a darn thing about them... and that is really strange that you could get into the settings, but they wouldn't work!  I wonder if changing the default settings on that printer to 8.5X11 would make a difference (rather than just for that particular print job).

welcome to the forum CosmicFred... the songs on Chordie are basically found elsewhere on the internet then converted to an easy to read format.  If you post a request for song chords in the appropriate section you might get a response on where to find them on the web... in the mean time, if you do find them... go here:  http://www.chordie.com/addurl.php  and enter the url where the chords were found and at sometime in the future that song will be indexed and added to the chordie search. 

hi, my issue is somewhat similar, however, it involves just wanting to be able to use the majority of the length across an 8.5 by 11 letter size paper for chords/lyrics 2 line style via chordpro files.

basically, i don't like the fact that so many tabs/ chord sheets only go halfway across the page.  it makes songs take up more pages and space than i would like, more page turning, etc....

its tedious to drag the chords and next line down separately) to accomplish this.  the best thing i have come up with utilizes a free program called ChordSmith and importing a 2 line style song or a chordpro song (via pasting) into Chordsmith then eyeballed (or trial and erroring) how long each line of chordpro info can be and still fit/line up with the margins in my microsoft word ms word or open office document.  then i just hit the convert from chordpro button and its been working good.  be sure to always use a fixed width font like courier. 
i would like anybodys input about ways to do this pro or con and reasons why.
thanks,

Hi Jim Beglinger
Please note that Chordie is only a search engine and presents chords in Chopro from other websites.
The fact that some songs are "off and wrong" is down to the original website they are taken from and not the fault of Chordie.
ark