One of the most tedious but crucial jobs of the worship leader is preparing top-notch music charts for his or her team. One trick you can utilize is ChordPro.
What is ChordPro?
ChordPro is type of charting in which rather than placing the chords on top of the lyrics on their own line, you place them in brackets [ ] immediately before the letter/word/space you want the chord to be above. When you copy and paste this type of text into planning center, it automatically arranges the chords and lyrics to look the way they are supposed to, with chords above the lyrics. Here is a before and after of what the ChordPro chart looks like, and what it is converted into in Planning Center.
Before
After
What's the big deal?
What's cool about this type of charting is that the chords will always remain on top of the lyrics you want them to be above. When you add or delete spaces from your lyrics, the chords while automatically remain in the right spot because you are no longer depending on lining up the spacing. You can also adjust your font size, document size, and other settings in the Planning Center editor, and the chord will remain in the right spot so long as the chord is in brackets immediately before the lyric you want it to be above.
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Where to find ChordPro Charts
When you purchase chords from praisecharts.com and when you go to download your chart, rather than selecting the download button, click "edit the chart" and in the Praise Charts Editor you can change the mode to ChordPro, copy the ChordPro chart, and the paste it into your editor.
Worshiptogether.com provides free ChordPro charts for the songs in their library. You just need to signup for a free membership to their site in order to access them.
Try using ChordPro
Try it yourself! Download the text file for the ChordPro chart of What a Beautiful Name by Hillsong Worship. Then copy and paste the text into planning center and format it to your liking!