Converting Word DOC to TXT files for lyric pad

This topic is to provide users with some helpful information, tips and tricks when converting their word docs to txt files for use in Lyric Pad.
(All information covered here also is valid for any other text editor format you may wish to convert from, Just replace word doc with whatever text based doc you have)

The procedure I follow:

• Open your word doc in word
• If your spacing is critical (eg chords lining up with words) then make sure your word doc is using a monospace font such as courier new
• Remove any tabs and replace them with spaces
• Save as (or export) the document as a plain txt file. When it asks what encoding type select UTF-8
• Copy your created txt lyric file into your lyrics directory on your device
• Open the file in the lyric pad editor
• Add the monospace font at the top of the file and any information such as title / artist / duration
• Save the file and it should be good for use.

Questions, Problems and Solutions

I converted my file but all of the formatting/spacing changed
This can happen for a couple of reasons. Either:

• You had tabs in your word doc which were changed to a single space when converted
• You were using a non-monospace font in your word doc (Read more below on monospace fonts)

What is a monospace font and why should I use it?
A monospace font is a font where every character has the same width such as "courier new".
Standard fonts have different spacing and when you view the same file with different fonts this will cause the formatting of the file to change.
If you have a word doc using "Times New Roman", convert it to txt and then look at it in android using the serif font then the formatting will change because the character widths are different.
If you have a word doc using "Courier New", convert it to txt and then look at it in android using the monospace font then the formatting stays the same because every character has the same width.

After I convert my files I get a strange ? symbol in lyric pad
Most likely, you have converted your word doc to txt using the standard msdos txt encoding. Use the UTF-8 character set instead and this should resolve your problem.

I would like to use Greek or other non-english characters in my files but they display as a strange ? symbol in Lyric pad
Most likely, you have converted your word doc to txt using the standard msdos txt encoding. Use the UTF-8 character set instead and this should resolve your problem.

What is a UTF-8 character set?
The original msdos character set was a basic set of characters. As systems progressed the UTF-8 character set was created which includes a lot of non-english characters. UTF-8 is the native character set used in android devices.
The complete list of UTF-8 characters can be seen here
www.fileformat.info/info/charset/UTF-8/list.htm

I tried all that but it is still not formatting properly in Lyric Pad
Are you using a monospace font in Lyric Pad?
There are two ways to do this:

• Set monospace font as your default font in lyric pad by enabling the option Lyric Display / Monospaced Font Note: This will effect all files that do not have a @!font tag in them
• Set monospace font for a particular file by inserting the "@!font monospace" tag at the top of the file.

Note: @!font tags override the default font that is set in options.