Using Notepad, Wordpad, or Word to create the .txt Lyrics File

[Starlips]

I haven't tried any other .txt word processor programs yet, but I would like to use a program more sofisticated than Notepad. Also, there needs to be a feature to allow a logo or title screen with author and publisher credits. Also I noticed that Karaoke Home Producer does not recognize other fonts selected in Notepad. And it would be nice to be able to select background and lyric colors.

[admin]

You can also use the standard Windows Wordpad or Word, as long as you Save As a .txt file. You might have discovered that the Lyrics Text Window in Karaoke Home Producer allows entering and editing the text. Initially, we were going to allow the internal "project" data to be saved and restored. Thus, you could edit your text, save it and change it if needed. However, there was a complaint from our Karaoke Pro users who saw the possibility of damage to the industry by allowing the project to be saved and emailed around.

I agreed with this logic. In so doing, we sacrificed the ability to save your edits in the Text Window. I will consider adding a "Save Lyrics" function in a future upgrade to over come this problem.

Currently, leading spaces seem to be pruned. If we allowed this, you could center. Don't look for graphics in Karaoke Home Producer. That allows copyrighting the song, turning the output of Karaoke Home Producer into a commercial product. I am sorry, but our Karaoke Pro product has the feature, which was very expensive to implement. If we add graphics into Karaoke Home Producer, we would destroy our Karaoke Pro product, our Karaoke Pro users, and all the current production companies. Sorry, I'll pass on that one for now. Hope you understand.

Selecting colors will be considered in the future, and even fonts might be. These will be extra cost. The base product is useable by anyone who trys. The more features we add in, the more difficult it become to "understand" and the more support calls we get. Its a two-edged sword. Product developers walk a fine line. You can never meet everyones desires.

[GordonF]

Here's a little workaround for the lack of "save project" feature. I have more than one text editor so this is easy for me, but you could achieve the same thing with Wordpad if say Notepad was your primary editor.

* Create a test text file with something like this:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5

This lets you know where KHP's border is when you want to place lyrics.

* Change the display font to Arial Narrow 24 as suggested by the KHP instructions. Enable the "Wrap to Window" switch in Wordpad.

* Resize the window to match whatever column KHP cut off the line. Now you know where your margin is.

You could also set the margins in Page Setup in inches or whatever, and save a default Wordpad document with that page width and typeface. The next time you want to create a lyrics file, paste the raw text into this default document, massage it to fit, then copy & paste back into KHP or into another text document.

[Cid_cat]

I've found one good feature with using MS Word. It's easy to find lyrics on the web but they are generally lower case. You can cut and paste them into Word, then change the entire document to capitals using the automatic caps function. Then cut and paste those lyrics into notepad or save as a .txt file. All caps shows better in KHP files.

If you must add your name in your KHP CDG files, then do so at the end, taking the time to sweep the color bar slowly. Your audience is already watching the screen so they'll see your name. You can verbally hype the fact that the file is homemade....a logo is not necessary.

Cid_cat