From a paper chord book to a digital repertoire

How to gather a chord archive scattered across folders, photocopies, PDFs and photos into one digital repertoire, and how to keep it readable on stage.

Why go digital?

For years the paper chord book was a stage essential; but it is hard to read in dim light, turning pages takes your hand off the instrument mid-song, and worn or lost pages have no backup. Sharing with your band means photocopies or photos every time. A digital repertoire removes most of these problems.

1. Gather your archive in one place

The first step is bringing scattered sources together: photos on your phone, PDF and Word files on your computer, cloud folders, chord site links you saved. Importing them in one go is far faster than retyping songs one by one.

2. Check where the chords sit

On scanned or photographed pages it matters that each chord sits over the right syllable. Look over the songs you imported once and fix any chord that slipped; you do it once and it pays off at every gig.

3. Tag your repertoire

Good organisation is how you find a song among hundreds. Tagging songs by genre, tempo and mood, grouping them by artist and noting the key saves seconds when you build a setlist and when a request comes in on stage.

4. Tune the screen for the stage

The big advantage of digital is that the screen adapts to you: make the text bigger, open up the line spacing, switch to dark mode on a dark stage. Seeing the whole song on one screen or moving with auto-scroll ends the page-turning problem.

5. Make sure it works offline

Many venues have weak internet. It matters that your app keeps your songs on the device and needs no connection on stage, with backups happening in the background when you are online.

6. Share it with your band

A shared repertoire means everyone plays from the same version at rehearsal. When a key or an arrangement changes, updating it in one place is far easier than sending everyone a new photo.

In Reperto you can import PDFs, photos, Word files, links or an entire Drive folder in one go; your songs are ready on stage in a clean, readable layout.