Songbook Creation In Hoster
 

I have been cleaning up my database and ready to print new songbooks. I am trying to use the Hoster songbook but have a question. I would like to print in 2 columns but when I select 2 columns in Hoster and then view the book it is only one column. Am I doing something wrong? Also, if I were to inport it into excel or word, how do you guys format them? Do you create a table or anything. Just wondering. Thanks

Re: Songbook Creation In Hoster
 

I think the 2 column only works in Word.

Re: Songbook Creation In Hoster
 

Are you using Microsoft Word or Wordpad to open the songbook.rtf file ?
Wordpad can't format in multiple columns.

If you have Word installed on your computer use that. If you have Word but don't know it's location type winword.exe in the search box, if it finds it right click on it and select "Open file location" then you should be able to follow the path to enter it in the songbook select viewer dialog.
I have a video showing how to find winword.exe you can view it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYOjPxBa-Eo

In the video I have only shown it with a single column but can assure you 2 columns does display if using Word.

You can also use Microsoft Works Word processor, for that you need to find "WksWP.exe" file.
One way to use it in Excell is to open it in word first then save it as .txt format.

Re: Songbook Creation In Hoster
 

I have selected 2 columns and saved the file as rtf. Then when I open word it still comes in as one column.

Re: Songbook Creation In Hoster
 

I have word starter which i think may be the issue. And finding the path to it is not easy. If I open word starter then open the file it is still one column is it because I do not have full version word? Other options?

Re: Songbook Creation In Hoster
 

When you say you saved it as .rtf file, you don't choose to save it as anything, you just press the create button and it saves it automatically.
Then if you open it by choosing view songbook and you selected 2 column mode and chose Word as the viewer you should see it as 2 columns.

If you don't have the select viewer set for word and it opens with wordpad then you choose to save it as in that then it will only save it as 1 column.

It saves it as Songbook.rtf and is in the folder displayed in the folder path shown in the location window next to the column select box.

Re: Songbook Creation In Hoster
 

ok last question on this, I have imported all of my songlist into excel. I have two columns, one with artist and one with song title. I have cleaned up the naming and duplicates. My problem is now putting in back into word so that I can create my actual book, with 2 columns. Can anyone give me some suggestions. Do you import back into word or print from excel? I am sure there is a simple solution but I am stuck lol. How do I save it to import into word and format word with 2 columns?

Thanks

Re: Songbook Creation In Hoster
 

Create it with Word as the viewer. Then it will automatically come up when you view the song book as a 2 column formatted book if you have 2 columns selected in the create song books. I didn't even know you could export to Excel anymore. You don't need to drop to Excel or reimport to word.

Re: Songbook Creation In Hoster
 

Problem is I only have word starter on my computer so it does not function the same as word. Since I have not updated all of the songs in hoster it is much easier to edit in excel. I just can't figure out how to get the excel data back into word correctly. It pastes in as a table and I can't adjust anything.

Re: Songbook Creation In Hoster
 

Perhaps your starter version is limited on the formatting of the pasted table.

Do you not have a copy of Microsoft works on your computer, the word processor that comes with that (Works Word Processor) will open the file Hoster creates with 2 columns just the same as Word, the only thing that fails on is the page title has to be left blank in the songbook dialog.

To try and answer your question about formatting the pasted file in Word. Depending how many pages in your file this is quite a processor intensive operation so edits you make may be slow to process.
After your file is pasted go to the file menu and select page setup and select the margins tab set the left margin to about 1CM if yours is in inches about 1/4", next from the table menu select Table Properties then select the column tab tick the box for preferred width, set the first column to about 4.5 cm press ok and wait it can take a fair time to process all the pages, then repeat the process for the next column, the idea is to get the first 2 columns to take up less than half the page.
Once that has finished processing open the format tab and select columns then select 2 columns and leave it 2 process that.
You should be able to format the text in each column by holding the curser just above the column until you see a little down pointing arrow then left click and it should select the whole column then select format Font.

You can print straight from XL but I don't think you can have extra columns in that.

It all works much easier and quicker with the Word processor and the file Hoster creates.

By the way which version of windows are you using ?
Which version of Hoster ?