[Scherzo]

Thanks!

[Scherzo]

Andy:

I looked briefly at the link(s) you provided and I have a stupid question to ask:

I see CSV files on the Forum for a couple of the Fake Books I have. So IF I import one of the the CSV files for one of the books I have in MSP and match it to the PDF and all of that, what does the CSV file do for me in MobileSheets?

That is what I am having a hard time understanding.

[BRX]

The csv is nothing more than the means to provide MSP with the data to save in its db initially. If you've imported the pdf and the metadata you want you don't need the csv any more and probably the index in the book neither since it's all there if you've done it right,

You don't have to split your books manually. It's sufficient to import the pdf as one file and let MSP do the referencing. I usually have my fakebooks sorted under albums, too (but other groups would do as well) so I can browse them as a whole book (well, alphabetically) or use the entries as alphabetical index. 

IMO you'll see that you don't need any more than that. (But you have to do the work with the csv import initially).

[AndyL]

I see CSV files on the Forum for a couple of the Fake Books I have. So IF I import one of the the CSV files for one of the books I have in MSP and match it to the PDF and all of that, what does the CSV file do for me in MobileSheets?

The CSV file tells MSP how to "split" the fakebook PDF into individual songs. So if you have already got individual songs that reference your fakebook PDF you don't need the CSV file. If you don't, what should happen when you import the CSV file is, MSP should read the contents of the CSV file and create a number of songs that refer to the single fakebook PDF. They will have the titles listed in the CSV and point at the page numbers in the CSV. Usually the CSV also assigns a category so all the songs will be in the same category.

And when I said "split", what actually happens is... There is one single copy of the PDF, all of the songs refer to this one PDF, each song will refer to one or more pages in the PDF. So when you open the song it will automatically open the PDF at the page referred to. It will only let you turn pages within the range, so you can't accidentally turn to the next song in the PDF. So it is a bit like the PDF has been split into separate songs.

HTH

Andy

[itsme]

With a CSV file more or less all fields of the song editor can be populated. Each CSV column refers to a song editor field. Title and Page Order are mandatory. You are free to add more columns as you like to fill albums, keys, composers, collections, whatever. In chapter "CSV OR PDF BOOKMARK IMPORT" of the manual you can find a list of keywords how to address the columns / fields. Unknown columns are ignored by MSP.

And: you don't have to import all songs of a certain CSV: As soon as you open a CSV, MSP shows a list of all songs that the CSV contains. You can select with checkboxes which songs you really want to be imported.

That's how I use fakebooks and CSV import: I only import those songs into my "productive" library that I really plan to use.
I use a second MSP library (are you aware that you can switch libraries?) to import all songs of a lot of fakebooks for looking up what I have.

I recommend that you make a backup of your library (or use a second device) so that you can go back at any time and play around with some examples.

[Scherzo]

I see CSV files on the Forum for a couple of the Fake Books I have. So IF I import one of the the CSV files for one of the books I have in MSP and match it to the PDF and all of that, what does the CSV file do for me in MobileSheets?

The CSV file tells MSP how to "split" the fakebook PDF into individual songs. So if you have already got individual songs that reference your fakebook PDF you don't need the CSV file. If you don't, what should happen when you import the CSV file is, MSP should read the contents of the CSV file and create a number of songs that refer to the single fakebook PDF. They will have the titles listed in the CSV and point at the page numbers in the CSV. Usually the CSV also assigns a category so all the songs will be in the same category.

And when I said "split", what actually happens is... There is one single copy of the PDF, all of the songs refer to this one PDF, each song will refer to one or more pages in the PDF. So when you open the song it will automatically open the PDF at the page referred to. It will only let you turn pages within the range, so you can't accidentally turn to the next song in the PDF. So it is a bit like the PDF has been split into separate songs.

HTH

Andy

That helps a LOT and of course creates more questions...

Am I correct in assuming from reading your description that when the "split" occurs, the "new" songs split off from the fakebook, populate the Songs List in MSP?

Hypothetical situation to clarify:

I have a library with 10 songs, all PDF's. I use a CSV to add a fake book of 100 songs to my library.

Do I now have 110 "individual" songs in my library or 11, with the eleventh being the fakebook?

[itsme]

110 songs referencing 11 files.
I assume your 10 original songs use 10 different PDFs. The newly added 100 songs all refer to the same single PDF file.

The "Files" tab of the song editor shows what's happening. Just look at the fields "Files:" and "Page Order:"

[Scherzo]

110 songs referencing 11 files.
I assume your 10 original songs use 10 different PDFs. The newly added 100 songs all refer to the same single PDF file.

The "Files" tab of the song editor shows what's happening. Just look at the fields "Files:" and "Page Order:"

So if I understand this correctly, the CSV populates song data fields and aids in the import however, the songs will be imported individually and appear in the Songs tab as individual entries which in my case means I may end up with 10 versions of the same song unless I deselect the ones I don't want...?
 
If that is the case, having more individual songs to scroll through when searching seals the deal for me. I don’t want to import all of the songs individually from the fake books and use the Songs list to find them. Regardless of the methodology used to import the songs from the fake books, (CSV or just extracting the individual songs as individual PDF's in Acrobat), adding even 25% what is represented in the 12 fake books I have as single-page PDF's will clutter my library with an additional 2000 songs that I will rarely, if ever use.
 
All I am after is a way to use the PDF master index I already have in my library that covers all 12 fake books. When I don't have a song as an individual file in my library, I want to be able look up a song in that master index then be able to enter the page number indicated into the requisite fake book and have the page number match the song I’m looking for, meaning ignore the fake book cover pages, indexes etc.
 
Interestingly enough from the enlightenment you provided, I discovered a simple suitable work around.
 
After I imported the 12 fake books & the master index into my MSP library, I modified each fake book title and added the page number range & the amount of pages I had to factor when trying to match the page number referenced in the master index to the page number in the actual PDF fake book.
 
For example, I renamed "The Real Book Vol I" to read The Real Book Vol I - Pages 1-512 [+13] with the 13 representing the value I have to add to the page number I enter so it ignores the cover pages & indexes and matches the page number referred to in the master index.
 
What I discovered after reading your post is I can manipulate which pages appear in what order in the Files tab for the individual fake book file WITHOUT deleting any pages I may want to see later for some reason.
 
What I did was to offset the Page Order in Files for the individual fake book to account for the discrepancy. In the Page Order field under Files for The Real Book Vol I PDF in my library, the page order appears as 1-512. I changed it to read: 14-512,1-13. That puts PDF pages 1-13 at the back of the PDF and in effect makes MSP bring up page 14 when you enter page 1 for look-up purposes. The front & rear covers & index pages are at the back and can still be accessed through page turns or entering the last 13 pages numbers in the range (499-512). 
 
Is it what I really want, no but it is manageable and my Songs list doesn't have 4000 extra entries I didn't want in the first place.
 
Thanks!!

[Michael_G]

110 songs referencing 11 files.
I assume your 10 original songs use 10 different PDFs. The newly added 100 songs all refer to the same single PDF file.

The "Files" tab of the song editor shows what's happening. Just look at the fields "Files:" and "Page Order:"

So if I understand this correctly, the CSV populates song data fields and aids in the import however, the songs will be imported individually and appear in the Songs tab as individual entries which in my case means I may end up with 10 versions of the same song unless I deselect the ones I don't want...?
 

Hi Scherzo,

perhaps a combination of importing Fake Books via csv-File and using "Collections" lead to the goal.

Put all your "real" songs in one "main" collection and create a new collections for each via csv imported fake book. 
Do not use the song tab in the library but the collections tab, choose your main collection and start from this point (it is possible to configure mobilesheets starting with the collections tab choosed). 
So not "Songs" is the real starting point for you but your main collection. Forget the songs-tab ;-) 
(Thats my handling, i have sheets for the whole sax section and switch between the sheets for the needed instrument via collections during one single gig.)

If you need a song from a fake book, change to the corresponding collection.

For editing setlists you can use filtering to show only songs from a desired collections. 

Maybe this is helpful.

Cheers Michael

[itsme]

I use Collections for bands / line-ups / session venues and Albums for fakebooks.

[AndyL]

110 songs referencing 11 files.
I assume your 10 original songs use 10 different PDFs. The newly added 100 songs all refer to the same single PDF file.

The "Files" tab of the song editor shows what's happening. Just look at the fields "Files:" and "Page Order:"

So if I understand this correctly, the CSV populates song data fields and aids in the import however, the songs will be imported individually and appear in the Songs tab as individual entries which in my case means I may end up with 10 versions of the same song unless I deselect the ones I don't want...?

As has been mentioned, collections can help with this. The pre done CSV files usually have a collection defined so all the new songs go into one category.

This is why I suggested a new feature to import these songs into something like a setlist. Then have a new tab that listed them.

[itsme]

It's easy to edit a CSV so that the songs that it specifies go into whatever group you prefer ("group" in MSP speak is the generic term for Collections, Albums, Setlists, Composers ...).
The column headers in a CSV specify the database / song editor fields that are populated with the column's content.
You can easily populate a different field by changing the column header or add a column that populates whatever field you like.
The keywords to be used for the column headers are listed in the manual, see one of my previous posts in this thread.

I recommend LibreOffice Calc for editing CSV files.

[McAroni]

Maybe someone could make a video tutorial how to create edit and customize an csv for an pdf in Mobilesheets.
I tried it different times, i never used an csv file before, and i was never able to get a working csv file.
So i gave up. But maybe could someone here help a little bit.

[Scherzo]

I appreciate all of the suggestions to use either Collections or Albums for the fake books but in my case, I don't wish to add 1000's of additional individual songs that I may never use to my library and spend a huge amount of time populating the data fields for each song in the fake book to conform to the format I have for the other 800 songs in my library.

But more importantly, if I imported 4000 individual songs into my library or even 1000 and used a Collection or Album as the 2nd place to look when searching for songs that don't appear in my other Collections or the Song List, for a lot of reasons it takes longer and requires more steps than what I do now to search the master index and the 13 individual fake books I have loaded as multi page documents.

So in effect, I have what I want to a certain degree based on me figuring out how to use Page Order to my advantage without cluttering up my library & working countless hours massaging data.

[Pflichtfeld]

What I immediately noticed is when attempting to find a song from the Fake Book index by the referenced page number, I end up somewhere else because MobleSheets counts the first page in the PDF as number 1 while the Fake Book considers page 1 the first page of music, disregarding covers, indexes and other pages.
 

I posted a solution for this issue:
https://zubersoft.com/mobilesheets/forum...p?tid=8374