ABC → LaTeX → PDF

This repo provides a set of scripts to convert ABC (formatted music) to PDF (music sheet). First, it embeds ABC sheet into a LaTeX file as vector image(s), then compiles the LaTeX files to PDF.

It also produces input file for the abclisten subrepository, which turns the ABC files into an online sheet music and make them playable.

How to use?

• Type a music sheet using ABC notation, and add it to the main directory with .abc extension.

• Provide extra json in a file having the same name as the .abc file. For now, the following information fields are supported.

  • title: A title to the PDF.
  • date: The date it is added. For me, this is the date, on which I started practicing the specific song.
  • scale: A scaling factor for the sheet in the PDF file.
  • size: A size, like font size for the size of the note in the PDF file.
  • tempo: If the .abc file does not set the tempo, this field can provide the tempo information. This will not be printed to the TEX file, but will be used if the file is compiled for the abclisten.
  • share: A boolean field to dictate if the file will be shared or not. For example, it might be a copyrighted song. If sharing is disabled, the file will be exempted from abclisten, and it will be added to .gitignore to disable committing it.

  An example .json file is as follows:

  {
    "title" : "Name of the song",
    "date"  : "1 January 2020",
    "scale" : 0.82,
    "size"  : 0.75,
    "tempo" : "1/4=120",
    "share" : true
  }
  

• In the next step you can execute the ./compile script. You should execute it with an argument explained below:

  • $ ./compile.sh songname for compiling a single file
  • $ ./compile.sh -all for compiling all files
  • $ ./compile.sh -abclisten for compiling all files to listener

Dependencies

It uses:

• abcm2ps to convert abc sheet into svg images
• inkscape to convert svg images to pdf
• python3 to prepare tex files that include the pdf sheet input
• pdflatex to compile the tex files into pdf sheet
• jq to parse .json files