[Terence]

Hi, I'm a new user of MobileSheets. I'm happily importing individual pdf music scores, and using MS with a foot pedal, all great.
Now I want to be able to select individual music scores from my electronic Real Book.
I know what a CSV file is but I'm not sure how to use it.
Do I import the whole Real Book, then create bookmarks namng the songs I want to see?
Or do I only import the individual songs?
Should I place bookmarks in the Real Book pdf?
It would be great to have a simple tutorial importing a large pdf (like a Real Book) and being about to sccess individual songs somehow!
TIA.

[McAroni]

There is a forum round about csv questions....

https://www.zubersoft.com/mobilesheets/f...um-29.html

You already had a look there?

[Geoff Bacon]

There are lots of csv for realbooks already so check to see if one already exists (guessing do a forum search for Realbook or CSV)

Basically, you use a simple text editor to create a csv file that has a single line header and one line for each of the songs you want to access (the header line specifies the fields used in the other lines).

The format is quite fussy so you should look at another realbook (any) csv to see what it looks like.
Ideally you want to define lines for each song in the songbook.
It is a good idea to add a field to each line specifying a dedicated collection name for that book - this makes it easier to select all the files with a filter e.g. select all it's songs so that they can be deleted prior to reimporting.

The songbook and the .csv have to be in the same directory when the book is imported. The key bit is that the csv is only used during the import i.e. it not so easy if you decide to add missing songs that you omitted on the first import ( e.g. you could delete/reimport but this will probably lose any annotation that you have made).

Assuming you define entries for the whole book, please post your .csv for others to use

This advice is based on my experience about 3 years ago; things may have changed a bit since about reimporting the book.

Geoff

[itsme]

Geoff's post is correct.
Nevertheless I have a few things to add:
- minimum search term length is 4 characters so search for "csvfile" to find available CSV files, see https://www.zubersoft.com/mobilesheets/f...-6667.html
- having a search criterium to filter for all songs from a certain fakebook is really helpful, but it's not necessarily a collection to be used. I prefer using "albums" for that purpose - just a matter of personal preference. If you forget to specify something in your CSV file you can filter by filename.
- the CSV import dialog provides a selection of the songs in the book, so you have the choice
- I basically use three databases: the default "mobilesheets.db" as my active library that I use on stage, an "AllFakebooks.db" to have an overview over all songs in fakebooks and a temporary "Test.db" for testing that I clear completely whenever it seems useful - again just personal preference.

[mdavej]

I use csv and pdf bookmarks in different situations. Both work well, but adding bookmarks to a pdf is more difficult and requires more effort, at least for me it does. But I make bookmarks in the pdf sometimes because my backup music reading tablet is just a Kindle that can't run mobilesheets. So it's either pdf bookmarks or none at all in that case. 

I have about 20 fakebooks in my library which have mobilesheets song files for every tune as well as one for each whole book. I choose to use a single database for all my music.

[itsme]

When a CSV file is available it's not so difficult to add bookmarks to PDF.
There's a howto here: https://www.zubersoft.com/mobilesheets/f...-5298.html

[Terence]

Hi, I'm a new user of MobileSheets. I'm happily importing individual pdf music scores, and using MS with a foot pedal, all great.
Now I want to be able to select individual music scores from my electronic Real Book.
I know what a CSV file is but I'm not sure how to use it.
Do I import the whole Real Book, then create bookmarks namng the songs I want to see?
Or do I only import the individual songs?
Should I place bookmarks in the Real Book pdf?
It would be great to have a simple tutorial importing a large pdf (like a Real Book) and being about to sccess individual songs somehow!
TIA.

Thanks for the help, I completely understand it now and I've successfully imported my 6th Ed Real Book with pages identified by the CSV file.
This is so cool!!!

[mjmartin64]

I struggled to understand how to import a basic RealBook -- got help and now just want to spell out my understanding in case it's of use to others:

1.  Google around till you find a .PDF of Real Book Vol.1, 5th edition.
2.  Google around till you find a .CSV for Real Book Vol.1, 5th edition.
3.  I saved them both in the same Dropbox folder with the same name: Real-Book 5th Vol 1
4.  In MS, click Import 'CSV or PDF Bookmarks' -- choose your folder where the two files are saved -- and select them both at once.
5.  When you click 'OK', they will both come flying in and all bookmarks will now appear and work in your song list.

Note:  The first time I did this, my CSV file was wrong and kept taking me to the wrong page.  I just deleted the entire set of songs and started over until I got the correct .csv file which is now working a dream.

Many thanks to MS and Mike for the support in figuring this out.