Song Formats
| Format | Extensions | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| ChordPro | .chopro, .chopro.txt, .chordpro, .chordpro.txt, .cho, .cho.txt, .crd, .crd.txt, .pro, .pro.txt | Best for editable lead sheets, transposition, chord diagrams, comments, and display controls. The extra .txt variants help with sharing on mobile devices. |
.pdf | Use for scanned sheets or publisher files. PDF files can be viewed, zoomed, printed, and annotated. | |
| Images | .jpg, .jpeg, .gif, .bmp, .png, .webp | Good for quick scans or photos. Chordy optimizes imported images for storage and viewing and supports a separate annotation layer for freehand drawings and text boxes. |
| MusicXML | .musicxml, .musicxml.txt, .mxl | Renders notation from scorewriters such as MuseScore, Finale, Dorico, or Sibelius. |
| Guitar Pro | .gp, .gp3, .gp4, .gp5, .gpx, .gpif | Renders tablature and score content with track playback controls where available. |
| Text and HTML | .txt, .html, .htm | Useful for lyrics, notes, simple charts, or rich text imported from other tools. |
Features By Format
| Feature | ChordPro | Image | Text | HTML | MusicXML | Guitar Pro | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View and zoom | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Horizontal layout | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
| Transpose | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Chords and guitar diagrams | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| Comments | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| File annotations | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| Edit | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| MIDI actions on open | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
ChordPro Directives
Chordy supports important ChordPro directives for metadata, sections, and output. These include title/t, subtitle/st, artist, composer, lyricist, copyright, album, year, key, time, tempo, duration, capo, and meta.
For visible notes, Chordy supports comment/c, highlight, comment_italic/ci, comment_box/cb, and Pango markup. For sections, you can use start_of_chorus/end_of_chorus, start_of_verse/end_of_verse, start_of_bridge/end_of_bridge, start_of_tab/end_of_tab, start_of_grid/end_of_grid, custom start_of_*/end_of_* sections, plus start_of_abc/end_of_abc and start_of_svg/end_of_svg.
For page breaks, Chordy supports new_page/np and new_physical_page/npp.
Chordy Archive Formats
| Format | Extensions | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Backup archive | .chordybak, .chordybak.json | Imports folders, songs, files, and sets from older Chordy backup archives. Newer exports stay backward compatible. |
| Database backup | .chordydb, .chordydb.json | Can overwrite the current database or merge songs, folders, sets, and files from the backup. |
| Set export | .chordyset, .chordyset.txt | Imports a set and matches songs by ID or metadata when possible. All versions stay importable. |
| Folder export | .chordyfolder, .chordyfolder.txt | Imports a folder archive into the selected project/folder. |
| Zip archive | .zip | Imports supported files contained in the archive. |
Import Tip
Normal song imports need a selected folder so Chordy knows where to place them. Standalone imports such as backups, Chordy sets, Chordy folders, and zip archives can contain their own structure. For .chordydb files, Chordy asks before import whether to overwrite the current database or merge the backup data.