Free Software for Creating Ukulele Chord Sheet PDFs!

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uvUkeClub

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Tired of fighting with Microsoft Word to create music books for my uke club, I have created a program that makes PDFs like those found on DoctorUke.com. It is completely free and runs on any computer with Java (Macs, Windows, Linux, etc.)

Screenshot:
ukepdf-screenshot.jpg

Downloads & Documentation:
http://www.uvukeclub.com/ukepdf

Feel free to reply to this thread with comments. I would love to hear from anyone that finds this program useful!

-Dennis
 
Wow. That is wonderful! Thank you! I can't wait to try it! I love Doctoruke's sheet music.
 
I'm trying it out right now. While it can define standard chords (C, F, G,) it's not recognizing major 7 and augmented. I'm trying to put in a song with a CM7 and a G aug and I keep getting the error message, "Chord Not Defined." This is a very useful tool however, thanks for creating and sharing it.
 
Very nice! How are you programmatically exporting to PDF?

Nice to see that it supports custom chord diagrams - so I assume you're drawing them manually as opposed to using a collection of saved images?

My own free app Chordious (http://chordious.com) helps you make custom chord diagrams, and eventually I want to have an easy way to create PDFs, say for custom chord charts.
 
Captain Simian said:
I'm trying it out right now. While it can define standard chords (C, F, G,) it's not recognizing major 7 and augmented. I'm trying to put in a song with a CM7 and a G aug and I keep getting the error message, "Chord Not Defined." This is a very useful tool however, thanks for creating and sharing it.
Click to expand...

Did you check the documentation? There's a section for defining custom chords in your input file. Any chord shape and name you like can be explicitly defined.

Code: 
Chord Definitions
If you want to define your own chords, add lines like this to your input:
[define C2=C:5,4,3,3]
Then you can use the new chord [C2]. "C" is the chord label, and the numbers are the g-, c-, e-, and a- 

string fret numbers. Use a fret number of -1 to put an X in the chord diagram.

I am looking forward to trying this out! Many thanks to the OP for such a great new resource. I have working with the CHORD! App for android and iOs. While it supports a lot more advanced features for formatting, actually importing and marking up chords using a mobile device can be slow and cumbersome.

Support for DGBE or other alternate tunings at some point would be on the wish list.

For simple song sheets this might hit the sweet spot for simple and powerful for me. KUDOS!
 
Last edited:
Works pretty slick. I tested it out. One thing I might recommend adding a "Created using" line at the bottom with a link back to your download page. Others should enjoy this if we share tabs we created with it. Maybe a checkbox so we can include it?
 
ubulele said:
I now mostly play away from first position and use a lot of "color" chords and alternative voicings, so I really appreciate tools that can handle custom chords in different voicings up the neck.

It would be particularly nice if this tool could also export individual custom chord charts as stand-alone images in a few sizes/resolutions. It seems that you've already written the basic engine for generating the images. One reason I haven't turned my hand to writing a tutorial blog is that I'd need graphics like this to simplify the explanations. Image exports would even be handy for embedding charts in discussions here.

Does anyone know of some other simple, free tool that will do this?
Click to expand...

Try my tool Chordious (http://chordious.com) for a free way to create and export your own diagrams as image files.
 
Love the ukePDF Java program. Can you modify to let us pick font size. I am older and need a larger font than the default.
 
Larry68 said:
Love the ukePDF Java program. Can you modify to let us pick font size. I am older and need a larger font than the default.
Click to expand...
Welcome to the UU forums Larry68! This post is from 2015, and the original creator of this thread hasn't been on the forum since 2021, so it's possible that you may not have any response. It's worth an ask, though!
 
uvUkeClub said:
Tired of fighting with Microsoft Word to create music books for my uke club, I have created a program that makes PDFs like those found on DoctorUke.com. It is completely free and runs on any computer with Java (Macs, Windows, Linux, etc.)

Screenshot:
View attachment 85553

Downloads & Documentation:
http://www.uvukeclub.com/ukepdf

Feel free to reply to this thread with comments. I would love to hear from anyone that finds this program useful!

-Dennis
Click to expand...

Thanks, but the link takes me here -

 
ploverwing said:
Welcome to the UU forums Larry68! This post is from 2015, and the original creator of this thread hasn't been on the forum since 2021, so it's possible that you may not have any response. It's worth an ask, though!
Click to expand...
Funny! Now wonder I couldn't find anything.
 
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