Printing Songs: Get a clean copy for your music stand

Songs print without the banner, the menus or the advertisements. What comes out is the words, the chords and the diagrams.

There are two ways to do it. Print straight from your browser, which is quicker, or save a PDF, which gives you more control and something you can keep or share.

See how it will print before you print it

Open the song in Edit and click the printer icon. You get a preview of the actual printed page before any paper is used, which is the easiest way to tell whether a song fits on one sheet.

See Print preview for how to use it.

💡 Handy hint: If you have made changes in Edit, press Done before opening the print preview. Until you do, the preview still shows the old version.

Click the printer icon at the top of the page, or press Ctrl+P on Windows and Linux, or Cmd+P on a Mac.

The chord diagrams print wherever you currently have them — Top, Right or Bottom. If you would rather print without them, click Hide on the diagram position bar first.

Getting a better result

A few things worth doing in the browser's print box:

  • Set the margins to Minimum or None, which fits more on each sheet
  • Untick Headers and Footers, which otherwise adds the web address and a page number to every page
  • Chrome and Edge tend to print more reliably than other browsers

And one thing outside it. If the song is too wide and words are being cut off at the end of lines, set Width to A4 or Letter in Settings before you print.

Save a PDF instead

If you want to keep the song, send it to someone, or gather it into a songbook, make a PDF rather than printing.

Choose Create New PDF from the 📄 Files menu. The PDF is built on the site rather than by your browser, so the layout is exact and comes out the same for everyone.

See Creating PDFs, Word Docs and Zips for the full picture.

💡 Handy hint: Your browser can also save as a PDF from its own print box, choosing PDF instead of a printer. That is fine for a quick copy, but Create New PDF gives a tidier result and is the one to use for songbooks.

Left handed diagrams, and lyrics without chords

For left handed chord diagrams, tick Show left hand chords in Settings before you print or create the PDF.

For the words on their own with no chords at all, choose Create Lyrics PDF from the 📄 Files menu.