[CParmerlee]

One of the ensembles I play with distributes PDFs with all parts (for a given composition) in a single PDF.  I have been looking for the best way to handle this.  If I always played the same part, it would be no problem because I can just select the page(s) for that one part.

The problem is that MobileSheets saves this page selection with the song itself.  Let's say I have a setlist for July 4 that includes America the Beautiful, and I know I am playing trombone-3, I have no problem setting that up to display only the trombone-3 page(s).  But if I have another setlist for July 15 playing the same song, and on July 15 I am playing Trombone-2, this doesn't work.  That is to say, I can't prepare my setlists in advance because one will override the other.

I realize I can manually go through the entire library and break all the original PDFs into multiple PDFs, one for each part, but that is a lot of work.  Am I missing something important here?  Is there some way to do this without having to crack open each PDF externally to MobileSheets?

[CParmerlee]

I see I can copy the song in the collections or the song library, then I can have different page ranges for each instance of the song.  But that isn't any easier than cracking the PDFs open using an external tool.

[BRX]

Well, the problem is in the way of the distribution itself. I don't see a way without some organizing or splitting beforehand.

My solution with the least amount of work probably would be:

Put the song into MS with both parts (so when your tb1 part is from 10-12, tb2 from 16-18 putting the range like 10-12,16-18)
Then make a link point at the first page of tb1 (smart button would work too I think) to jump to the tb2 part (and maybe a link point/smart button there to jump back to tb1 again).

So you can put always the same song in the setlist but with one tap change your voice and back.

Maybe others have better ideas.

[CParmerlee]

And if others are struggling with a similar requirement, there aren't a lot of great tools for breaking apart PDFs without spending hundreds of dollars.  The one I have found most useful is "PDFsam Visual".

https://pdfsam.org/download-pdfsam-visual/

That is $60, which is on the high side for what amounts to a small tool.  But it has saved m a lot of time.  If anybody has other recommendations for easily breaking apart PDFs, I'd like to see them.

[Skip]

I think I would just make a copy of the original [as many as needed],identify them as piece 3, piece 2, etc and modify as required.

[CParmerlee]

I think I would just make a copy of the original [as many as needed],identify them as piece 3, piece 2, etc and modify as required.

Yes, it seems like the best solution is to do the splitting before importing into MS.  I am fairly new to MS and I just wanted to make sure I wasn't overlooking something simple.  I have found MS very reliable and supportive of an efficient work flow, so I had hoped there was an easy solution for this type of situation already in the product.  I hope the author will consider adding such capability in the future, as I believe this is something that will come up frequently.

Basically, the issue is that page ranges are stored with the song itself, and in these cases, we need to have page sequences associated with the setlist entry, not the song.

[Zubersoft]

In theory you can already accomplish that by just creating a copy of an existing song, modify the page range in the copy and add that to the setlist. Then you can delete the copy when you no longer need it. The song versioning feature planned for later this year will provide a cleaner way to do this (you will be able to just add a new version of an existing song, and specify that you want to load that version in the setlist).

Mike

[mdavej]

Will the versioning be alpha numeric, i.e., version "Alto Sax 2" as well as version "6.1", so it could be use for labeling parts?

[Skip]

Explanation disconnect on my part, sorry.
1- Original- title - song x - ver. 1
2- copy of original, title - song x - ver. 2, -trombone 3
3- copy of original, title - song x - ver. 3. -trombone 2
4- copy of original, title - song x - ver. 4 - alto 1
Each version is modified appropriately, in the app, on a case by case basis.
Each copy is a separate song in the library, therefore can be used in searches, set lists, collections, etc. as needed.
About as easy as it can get at this point.

[itsme]

I would leave the PDFs as they are and create separate songs per instrument, e.g. "America the Beautiful (trombone-3)",  "America the Beautiful (trombone-2)", and so on. Put them in collections per instrument / voice like "trombone-3", "trombone-2" and so on and creat setlists per event. MobileSheets can create these songs either by using snippets, copy the song and modify the page range or by using CSV import, the result is identical.

If you really want to split the PDF into separate files outside of MobileSheets, with PdfSaM Basic https://pdfsam.org/download-pdfsam-basic/ or PDF24 https://www.pdf24.org you can achieve that for free.

[CParmerlee]

I would leave the PDFs as they are and create separate songs per instrument, e.g. "America the Beautiful (trombone-3)",  "America the Beautiful (trombone-2)", and so on. Put them in collections per instrument / voice like "trombone-3", "trombone-2" and so on and creat setlists per event. MobileSheets can create these songs either by using snippets, copy the song and modify the page range or by using CSV import, the result is identical.

If you really want to split the PDF into separate files outside of MobileSheets, with PdfSaM Basic https://pdfsam.org/download-pdfsam-basic/ or PDF24 https://www.pdf24.org you can achieve that for free.

Thank you for those PDF product links.  I have purchased PDFsam Visual some time ago, but I bet others will take advantage of these free tools.

[Frank Cox]

poppler-utils and pdftk are both worth looking at.  Those are the pdf manipulation tools that I use the most.

[Lawrie]

Wouldn't it be simpler to create a CSV file and use it to import each part and just use the single PDF?  Multiple entries in the database, but single PDF file.  Just use the CSV to name each part with the song title plus part identifier.  E.G. "Autumn Leaves - Trumpet 1" etc.

[itsme]

... and distribute the CSV together with the PDF. It might be useful for your fellow musicians as well.

[Zubersoft]

Will the versioning be alpha numeric, i.e., version "Alto Sax 2" as well as version "6.1", so it could be use for labeling parts?

Yes, the version tag (or whatever I decide to call it) will be alpha numeric. One thing I'll have to enforce is that each version will have to share the same title, so if a user changes the title for one version, it will change it for all of them. I'm not sure yet how I"m going to handle metadata though - there have been discussions about it in other threads but allowing different metadata for each version will definitely present some challenges, so I'm not sure if it's the best idea yet.