First of all, please read the Getting Started page.
ChordPro recognises a vast number of command line options.
Short options
Short options are in the form -A, a dash (minus) followed by a
letter.
Long options
Long options are in the form --about, a double-dash followed by the
option name.
Some options can have arguments. For example, to specify song.pdf as
the name of the output file for ChordPro, the following options are
equivalent:
--output=song.pdf
--output song.pdf
-o song.pdf
Most options have corresponding settings in the configuration files. When used on the command line, the option overrides the corresponding settings in the configuration files.
--about (short: -A)
Prints version information about the ChordPro program. No other processing will be done.
--cover=FILE
Prepends the contents of the named PDF document to the output. This can be used to produce documents with cover pages.
--csv
When generating PDF output, also writes a CSV file with titles and page numbers. Some tools, e.g., MobileSheets, can use the CSV to process the PDF as a collection of independent songs.
The CSV has the same name as the PDF, with extension .pdf replaced
by .csv.
--decapo
If a song has a capo directive, do not show the capo setting in the output but transpose the chords of the song instead. Useful for musicians that want to play along and do not have capo capabilities, e.g. a bass player.
--diagrams=WHICH
Prints diagrams of chords used in a song.
WHICH can be all to print all chords used, user to only print
the user-defined chords, and none to suppress printing of chord
diagrams.
Configuration file setting: Printing chord diagrams.
See also: --chord-grids,
--easy-chord-grids,
--user-chord-grids,
--chord-grids-sorted.
--encoding=ENC
Specifies the encoding for input files. Default is UTF-8. ISO-8859.1 (Latin-1) encoding is automatically sensed.
--filelist=FILE
Reads the names of the files to be processed from the named file. This is mostly useful when you have a large collection of song files that you want processed, or when you want them to be processed in a particular order.
Every line from the named file is taken to be a file name, with the
exception of empty lines and lines that start with a # which are ignored.
This option may be specified multiple times.
Song file names listed on the command line are processed I the files from the filelist arguments.
--lyrics-only (short: -l)
Only prints lyrics. All chords are suppressed.
Useful to make prints for singers and other musicians that do not require chords.
--meta=KEY=VALUE
Presets metadata item KEY to have the value VALUE.
This option may be specified multiple times.
--no-csv
Suppresses the generation of a CSV file.
See --csv.
--no-toc
Suppresses the table of contents.
See --toc.
--output=FILE (short: -o)
Designates the name of the output file where the results are written to.
The filename extension determines the type of the output. It should correspond to one of the backends that are currently supported:
If a table of contents is generated with the PDF, ChordPro also writes a CSV file containing titles and page numbers. This CSV file has the same name as the PDF, with extenstion "pdf" replaced by .
txt
A textual representation of the input, mostly for visual
inspection.
cho
A functional equivalent version of the ChordPro input.
--start-page-number=N (short: -p)
Sets the starting page number for the output.
--toc (short: -i)
Includes a table of contents.
By default a table of contents is included in the PDF output when it contains more than one song.
--transcode=notation
Transcode all songs to the named notation system. Supported values are:
common (C, D, E, F, G, A, B)dutch (same as common)german (C, ... A, Ais/B, H)latin (Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, ...)scandinavian (C, ... A, A#/Bb, H)solfège (Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, ...)solfege (same as solfège)nashville (1, 2, 3, ...)roman (I, II, III, ...)--transpose=N (short: -x)
Transposes all songs by N semi-tones. Note that N may be specified
as +N to transpose upward, using sharps, or as -N to transpose
downward, using flats.
See also the transpose directive.
--version (short: -V)
Prints the program version and exits.
The original Chordii program did not have configuration files, so it had a large number of command line options to control the appearance of the output.
For compatibility, ChordPro recognizes most Chordii command line options. Note that not all of them actually do something.
Note: Chordii used the term grid for chord diagrams. It should not be confused with ChordPro grids.
--chord-font=FONT (short: -C)
Sets the font used to print the chord names.
See also ChordPro Fonts.
Configuration file setting: pdf.fonts.chord.
--chord-grid-size=N (short: -s)
Sets the total width of a chord diagram.
Configuration file setting:
pdf.diagram.
--chord-grids
Prints chord diagrams of all chords used in a song.
Configuration file setting:
diagrams.show.
--chord-grids-sorted (short: -S)
Prints chord diagrams of the chords used in a song, ordered by key and type.
Configuration file setting:
diagrams.sorted.
--chord-size=N (short: -c)
Sets the font size for the chord names.
Configuration file setting: pdf.fonts.chord.
--dump-chords (short: -D)
Dumps a list of all built-in chords in a form dependent of the backend
used. The PDF backend will produce neat pages of chord diagrams. The
ChordPro backend will produce a list of define directives.
--dump-chords-text (short: -d)
Dumps a list of all built-in chords in the form of define directives,
and exits.
--easy-chord-grids
Not supported.
--even-pages-number-left (short -L)
Prints even/odd pages with pages numbers left on even pages.
Configuration file settings:
pdf.even-odd-pages
and Page headers and footers.
--no-easy-chord-grids (short: -g)
Not supported.
--no-chord-grids (short: -G)
Disables printing of chord diagrams of the chords used in a song.
Configuration file setting:
diagrams.show.
--no-chord-grids-sorted
Prints chord grids in the order they appear in the song.
Configuration file setting:
diagrams.sorted.
--odd-pages-number-left
Prints even/odd pages with pages numbers left on odd pages.
Configuration file settings:
pdf.even-odd-pages
and Page headers and footers.
--page-number-logical (short: -n)
Not supported.
--page-size=FMT (short: -P)
Specifies the page size for the PDF output, e.g. a4 (default), letter.
Configuration file setting:
pdf.papersize.
--single-space (short -a))
When a lyrics line has no chords associated, suppresses the vertical space normally occupied by the chords.
Configuration file setting:
settings.suppress-empty-chords.
--text-font=FONT (short: -T)
Sets the font used to print lyrics and comments.
See also ChordPro Fonts.
Configuration file setting: pdf.fonts.text.
--text-size=N (short: -t)
Sets the font size for lyrics and comments.
Configuration file setting: pdf.fonts.text.
--user-chord-grids
Prints chord grids of all user defined chords used in a song.
Configuration file setting:
diagrams.show.
--vertical-space=N (short: -w)
Adds some extra vertical space between the lines.
Configuration file setting: Spacing.
--2-up (short: -2)
Not supported.
--4-up (short: -4)
Not supported.
See Configuration Files Overview for details about the configuration files.
Note that missing default configuration files are silently ignored. ChordPro will never create nor modify configuration files.
--config=JSON (shorter: --cfg)
A JSON file that defines the behaviour of the program and the layout of the output. See Configuration Files for details.
This option may be specified more than once. Each additional config file overrides the corresponding definitions that are currently active.
--define=item
Sets a configuration item. item must be in the format of period-separated configuration keys, an equal sign, and the value.
For example, the equivalent of command line option --no-chord-grids is
--define=diagrams.show=0.
You can also use colons to separate the keys, e.g., diagrams:show.
--define may be used more than once to set multiple items.
--no-default-configs (short: -X)
Do not use any config files except the ones mentioned explicitly on the command line.
This guarantees that the program is running with the default configuration.
--noconfig
Don't use the specific config file, even if it exists.
--nolegacyconfig
Don't use a legacy config file, even if it exists.
--nosysconfig
Don't use the system specific config file, even if it exists.
--nouserconfig
Don't use the user specific config file, even if it exists.
--print-default-config
Prints the default configuration to standard output, and exits.
The default configuration is fully commented to explain its contents.
--print-final-config
Prints the final configuration (after processing all system, user and other config files) to standard output, and exits.
The final configuration is not commented. Sorry.
--sysconfig=CFG
Designates a system specific config file.
--userconfig=CFG
Designates the config file for the user.
--help (short: -h)
Prints a help message. No other output is produced.
--ident
Shows the program name and version.
--manual
Prints the manual page. No other output is produced.
--verbose
Provides more verbose information of what is going on.
In particular, ChordPro will print the names of the configuration files that it processed. This may be revealing information.
Official web site: https://www.chordpro.org/.
Help improving this documentation - visit https://github.com/ChordPro/chordpro/wiki