'playtab' is a perl program that generates PDF documents to print the chords of songs. The output resembles (is influenced by) jazz grilles. The input for playtab is plain ASCII. It contains the chords, the division in bars, with optional annotations. An example: !t Blue Bossa Bossanova = | c-9 ... | f-9 ... | d% . g7 . | c-9 ... | | es-9 . as6 . | desmaj7 ... | d% . g7 . | c-9 . d% g7 | The first line, '!t' denotes the title of the song. Each song must start with a title line. The title line may be followed by '!s', a subtitle, for example to indicate the composer. The text "Bossanova" is printed below the title and subtitle. The "=" indicates some vertical space. The next lines show the bars of the song. In the first bar is the c-9 chord (Cminor9), followed by three dots. The dots indicate that this chord is repeated for all 4 beats of this bar. In the 3rd bar each chord take two beats: d5% (d half dim), a dot, g7 and another dot. Run playtab with "-h" or "--help" for the syntax of chords. If you use "=" followed by some text, the printout is indented and the text sticks out to the left. With this you can tag groups of bars, for example the parts of a song that must be played in a certain order. For example: !t Donna Lee !s Charlie Parker Order: A B A B = A | as . | f7 . | bes7 . | bes7 . | | bes-7 . | es7 . | as . | es-7 D7 | | des . | des-7 . | as . | f7 . | | bes7 . | bes7 . | bes-7 . | es7 . | = B | as . | f7 . | bes7 . | bes7 . | | c7 . | c7 . | f- . | c7#9 . | | f- . | c7 . | f- . | aso . | | as f7 | bes-7 es7 | as - | bes-7 es7 | You can modify the width of the bars with a '!w' control. Standard width of a beat is 30. '!w +5' increases the width to 35. '!w 25' sets it to 25. You get the idea. You can also change the height with '!h' (default is 15) and margin with '!m' (default width is 40). Look at the examples, that is (currently) the best way to get grip on what the program does. Oh, I almost forgot: it can print guitar chord diagrams as well. See "bluebossa", "sophisticatedlady" and some others. If you are a LilyPond adept, it can accept chord specifications the LilyPond way as well. Have fun, and let me know your ideas!