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Getting started

Songpress is an application that allows you to typeset songs, with chords an lyrics, easily.

With Songpress you cannot print your songs directly. Instead, once you have prepared your song, you have to "transfer" the song to an application that is able to print it; such as your favourite word processor (Microsoft Word, Openoffice.org, etc.), a desktop publishing application (for example Affinity), etc. Why? Because Songpress's business is to format beautiful songs - and it is skilled at it. But to prepare beautiful page layouts is the business of other good pieces of software, such as a Desktop Publishing application.

Thus, how do you prepare a song?

  1. In Songpress, compose the song in the ChordPro format. Essentially, just write the song and place the chords into square brackets: [C]This is a [Am]beauty[Em]ful [G7]song.
  2. Check out the formatted song in the preview pane. If you like it, go ahead.
  3. Copy the song into the Clipboard: select Edit -> Copy as Image
  4. Open your favorite publishing program (e.g. Affinity) and paste your song: select Edit -> Paste

Installation

Songpress officially runs on Windows and Linux. Installation via Linux instructions might also work on macOS, but it has not been tested on that platform.

Windows Installation

To install Songpress on Windows, we provide a network installer that downloads and installs the latest available version of Songpress.

Songpress is distributed through PyPI, the standard repository for Python packages. The network installer uses uv to:

  1. Check whether a recent version of Python is already installed on your system. If not, the installer will download a local version of Python dedicated to Songpress.
  2. Download and install Songpress along with all its dependencies (locally).

All installed files are contained in a single folder within your Program Files directory, allowing Songpress to be cleanly uninstalled using its own uninstaller.

Linux Installation

Warning

Songpress is written in Python: be sure you have Python installed on your Linux system.

On Linux, you can install Songpress by using three alternative methods:

  1. Python virtual environment and pip
  2. pipx
  3. uv

The installation process may take several minutes, as the installer needs to download and compile wxPython and wxWidgets libraries.

Warning

Be sure your system has the requirements to compile wxWidgets and wxPython

Install by using Python virtual environment and pip

Firstly, create a new virtual environment. Let's suppose the directory containing Python virtual environments is ~/.venv:

python -m venv ~/.venv/songpress

then activate it:

source ~/.venv/songpress/bin/activate

then install Songpress via pip:

pip install songpress

Install by using pipx

If you installed pipx on your system:

pipx install songpress

Install by using uv

Alternatively, you can use uv:

uv tool install songpress

Running Songpress

Note

If you installed Songpress in a virtual environment, you have to activate it before running the application:

bash source ~/.venv/songpress/bin/activate

You can run Songpress by typing:

songpress

You can create a start menu (application menu) shortcut by executing:

songpress --create-shortcuts

To upgrade Songpress on Linux, run:

pipx upgrade 

# if you use pip in a virtual environment:
#
# pip upgrade
#