Karaoke Forums

Based upon some threads I read here I purchased Music Book Deluxe to generate Karaoke books. Entry of the songs couldn't have been easier. But I'm having a lot of difficulty printing the books they I want them. The program doesn't seem to allow the user to select which data fields (artist, song title, disc number, etc) to print. It also doesn't seem to allow the user to adjust the formatting of the pages. I know I can export the book to Excel and print, but that seems like a hassle given the likelihood of future updates.

Am I missing something?

I don't know what kind of karaoke book programs that are out there (I know there are a lot of very helpful people here that could help you), but I know that I would much rather use Excel than most other programs anyway (especially if you still have to enter the names/titles in manually).

The only reason why I say this is because Excel is such a great program to work with. It is easy to format, sort, you can add pictures, you can change widths of cells, etc etc...

I know I have made great things with excel (casette tape covers, DVD covers, banners, flyers, and it is nice sometimes to have those gridlines there

Plus, you can add page borders, colors, change the font, etc.

However, that is my personal preference.

I'll tell you what I did.

I have my songbooks ORIGINALLY done in Excell. But I found a terrific guy named Chip that will convert your excel spreadsheet to his "songbook" program Speedbook...

and it puts it in the most GORGEOUS dual column format. They are produced in RTF format. (word document)... I then for my website convert those to .pdf format (( www.knightshow.com and check my songspage!))

Now, here's the ONLY problem.

Additional songs added to the songbook have to be manually entered. You can either manually entered into the gui interface, or you hack and edit the .fsv file (the converted .xls file, which is NOT friendly).

To be honest, what I've done has been to just keep adding them to my .xls sheet, and also to manually add them to the .rtf documents. I have my songbooks manually edited anyway, removing all duplicates off my "singers" songbook. My master songbook has all versions.

So it produces just a gorgeous book... but it IS a lot of work to keep it updated. If I weren't editing the dupes out, it would be no big deal... I'd just put them in the gui interface and be done with them.

Matt

My sonbook is still done in MSExcel. I wrote a VBA script that removes all the duplicates within seconds, and those are the "client" books. The Excel sheet without the removed duplicates I keep on my PC running Hoster, so if 1 song fails, I can find another version.
Now with the new Hoster, that is not needed anymore, seeing that Hoster has a great new search feature.

If you are using hoster, why lookup the song in the excel spreadsheet. Just use the search, and it will show them all to you, then you select, and add to playlist.

As I said, Dr. D



ps. I downloaded the latest version last night, 2.213, very nice! I was still running 2.014 up to last night.

2.214 due out the last of the month, (no comments)

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I'm Not Dead yet...... But every day Im getting Closer !

Just My two cents again...I createed my song list in Microsoft Access then exported to Excel to print for books. I use my lap top at shows with the access search .....it is nice and easy to find the songs.... No extra money spent on programs just utilizing what I had...It works foe me

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Wayne

Hey Adam

I use music book deluxe and export to excel to edit or print books.When you export to excel you can sort by artist,title number or anyway you want.You can change the color of the font,text size to get 25 to 60 songs on a page or however you want it.Give it a whirl and see what you think.

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Wayne

yes, I hear u ......in my music books deluxe there is a drop down menu that allows for choices for page selections sorting, printing etc.....I am currently using the airwer bookmaker, but used song books deluxe alot before my last puter crash....just haven;'t got it reloaded....keep clicking around , it will show up....It is there...maybe on different pages, one for print sizes, one for style and methof of compilation, etc....It is there....and Music books deluxe offers the most choices and makes the best looking books...Thye even have bold print choices....it's in there
click every button u got till it comes up....

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When I was young, I used to believe in the concept of one best friend,  then I became an adult  and  realized  that if you allow your heart to open up, God would show you the best in many friends...

Hi Adam -
I use Music Book Deluxe and have pretty much excelled in it, even adding my own scripts to this program (thanks to my computer knowledge) ...if your STILL having a problem with this program, shoot me over an email and I'll be happy to walk ya thru your problems...just hate to see that you've spent money on a product that your having difficulties using.
Hugs
Tammy Gail