OnSong's Secret Sauce (aka File Format)

The OnSong file format is a plain text file that's basically hieroglyphics for your song. It comes with a .onsong file extension, but srsly, OnSong will read literally any text file & pretend it's fancy. This format uses weird lil' special characters to tell your song what to do.

Apps for Editin' Plain Text

First things first: an OnSong file is just a sad lil' text document. Which means literally anyone with a computer & the built-in junk software can mess with it.

• On macOS crack open TextEdit from your Applications folder. It's a word processor that also does plain text (shocking, we know). Just remember to flip it to plain text mode by pickin' Make Plain Text from the Format menu.
• On Windows fire up Notepad from the Start menu. Riveting stuff.

Ready to get your hands dirty? Download this Example OnSong File & open it in whatever app won't judge you.

Sections

Here's the tea: OnSong files can be chopped up into sections. Sections are totes used to separate verses from choruses or bridges. You can also slice a verse into two stanzas for lyrics projection, or just… make it less of a mess. Label 'em if you're feelin' fancy.

Metadata

Metadata is basically gossip about your song, & it lives in the first section. Usually it's name/value pairs split by a colon, one per line. You can also yeet the title & artist as the first & second lines if you're lazy.

Chords & Lyrics

Chords get plunked down to vibe with certain words or phrases. OnSong flexes two chord styles: Bracketed Chords & Chords Over Lyrics. Pick your poison.

ChordPro

Look, OnSong format does what you need, but ChordPro has some extra bells & whistles. You can mix & match ChordPro syntax for those ~advanced~ moves.

Formattin'

Wanna make lyrics bold? Highlight a word? OnSong has special characters for that. Use 'em to flex harmony parts or just make stuff pop so people actually pay attention.

Pages

Plot twist: you can now force separate pages in your chord chart for print breaks. Because apparently we all still live in 2003.