The Guitar chord file format is a simple ASCII

ASCII

The American Standard Code for Information Interchange is a character-encoding scheme based on the ordering of the English alphabet. ASCII codes represent text in computers, communications equipment, and other devices that use text...

 file format

File format

A file format is a particular way that information is encoded for storage in a computer file.Since a disk drive, or indeed any computer storage, can store only bits, the computer must have some way of converting information to 0s and 1s and vice-versa. There are different kinds of formats for...

 for transcribing songs with guitar chord

Guitar chord

In music, a guitar chord is a chord, or collection of tones usually sounded together at once, played on a guitar. It can be composed of notes played on adjacent or separate strings or all the strings together...

s and lyrics

Lyrics

Lyrics are a set of words that make up a song. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist or lyrist. The meaning of lyrics can either be explicit or implicit. Some lyrics are abstract, almost unintelligible, and, in such cases, their explication emphasizes form, articulation, meter, and symmetry of...

.
Although this format is legible as it is, there are many popular programs for displaying, transposing and printing.
.crd is the normal filename extension.

Chords

Chords are delimited by square brackets. If the chord name follows a known system it can be properly interpreted by a program.
Non-standard names are allowed though.

Directives

Directives are delimited by curly braces. They are used to indicate meta data and to mark sections of a song.

Example

{title:Wonderful Time}

{subtitle:Words and Music (C) 2007 Adam Monsen}



[C]Every[G]body, [F]let's have a wonderful time

[C]Take it [G]slowly, [F]while you're feelin' fine

[C]One strange [E7]day shouldn't [F]take you by surprise

[C]But all right, [G]hey hey, [F]hey hey



{start_of_chorus}

[C]Ahhh [Am]ahhh [G]ahhh

[C]Ahhh [Am]ahhh [G]ahhh

{end_of_chorus}



[F]Wonderful [C]time