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The Chord Manager allows you to work with custom chord diagrams. The Chord Manager window contains tools that allow you to create your own chord diagrams, edit them, organize them, and insert them into your TablEdit document. You can also print and preview a list of all the custom chords in the Chord Manager window. You can open Chord Manager in a number of ways:
Chord Manager is meant to augment TablEdit's internal library of automatic chord diagrams, affording TablEdit users limitless flexibility in creating custom chord diagrams -- including the option of creating chord catalogues for instruments other than the guitar. Diagrams inserted into your documents appear above the tablature staff. Note: Chord Manager only deals with Custom Chord diagrams. To learn about using automatic chord diagrams (and for essential information on displaying automatic chords on screen and in printouts) refer to Display Options. Also, it's important to understand that TablEdit treats Custom Chords and Automatic Chords differently. Here's the main difference: Custom Chords diagrams always show, whereas Automatic Chords only show if you have Preferences/Display/Chords As Diagrams is checked. [Edit...] and [New...] both open the "Chord Editor" dialog. The only difference is that [Edit...] will only open the dialog if there is already at least one Custom Chord diagram included in the field at the left of the window. The diagram to be edited must, naturally, be selected by clicking on it first. If you don't select a diagram first, the first diagram in the field will be opened automatically. [New...] opens the editor with a blank chord grid displayed. [Delete] removes the currently selected chord diagram from the Chord Manager window. [Extract...] allows you to import Custom Chord diagrams existing in other *.tef files into the current tablature. Clicking on this button willl open the standard file selector so that you can choose the file from which the diagrams are to be imported. All of the Custom Chord diagrams contained in the selected file will be imported and displayed in the Chord Manager window. [Catalog...] allows the selection of an expressly created Custom Chord Catalog file. Such files, although they are actually standard TablEdit *.tef files, have a *.cat file extender for easy identification. When you click on the button, the standard file selector is opened so that you can select the catalog file to use. Once loaded, you will have direct access to the chord diagrams contained in the file. The last catalog file selected will be loaded automatically every time you start TablEdit. There are two such catalog files currently available from the TablEdit home page: travcrds.cat, which is a collection of about 150 Merle Travis style chords, and standard.cat, which is a collection of about 90 standard chord positions. Both of these deal with chords in standard tuning (EADGBE). We encourage our users to contribute their own Chord Catalogs for inclusion on the home page. Catalogs could, for instance, deal with special chord positions used by specific artists, chord diagrams for special tunings or chords for instruments other than the guitar. Chord catalogs are created in the same way as any other tablature file, the only difference being that the tablature grid, itself, is left empty. First, select {File}{New} (or press [ Below the [Catalog...] button are two, small "radio" buttons marked "Current File" and "Catalog", respectively. Once a catalog file has been selected for the first time, both of these buttons will be active. They allow you to switch between display of the Custom Chord diagrams already included in the current tablature and those in the Custom Chord catalog you've selected. Chords selected and inserted into the tablature from the catalog are automatically added to the "Current File" display. [Print] prints out all of the Custom Chords contained in the tablature or in the current chord catalog. When printing chord sheets, page breaks can be forced by inserting blank diagrams (all strings marked "X") at the points where a page break is desired. For example, in order to insert a page break after a series of A chords, simply create an empty diagram labeled "Bazzz" to serve as a bookmark (this assumes, of course, that you're using the alphabetical sorting option). Such a blank diagram, without an assigned name, can also be used to force individual automatic chord diagrams out of the tablature if these have selected under {File}{Preferences...}>Display. [Close] closes the Chord Manager dialog without inserting a diagram into the tablature. Any new diagrams that may have been created will be preserved in the chord diagram window. [Insert] closes the Chord Manager dialog and inserts the currently selected chord diagram into the tablature at the cursor position. In order to do this, you must place the cursor at the desired location prior to opening the Manager. Select an empty line since an anchor point in the form of a small black circle will be placed at the location you select, anchoring the chord in place above the tablature. Be warned, however, that the anchor will replace any number occupying the same space in both the screen display and on your printouts. Once the Manager has then been opened, simply click on the diagram you want to insert and then on the button marked [Insert]. The Manager dialog is then automatically closed and the selected chord is displayed above the cursor position. The check box marked "ABCDEFG" at the lower left of the dialog allows you to display the chord diagrams in the window either in their order of entry (default, unchecked) or alphabetically by chord name.
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