abc software packages

If you spot any inaccuracies or needed additions, please tell both me and Chris.

The packages which support abc notation can be found at the following sites:
• abc2mtex at Greenwich, UK; or abc2mtex at Ceolas, US
  ... is the original abc package for converting abc into sheet music. It is freeware and should in principle work on any platform (PC, Mac and UNIX). However, you will also need to install all (or at least a large part) of the TeX and MusicTeX packages. These too are freeware but may take considerable efforts to set up (although they are often available on UNIX systems in educational establishments).
• abc2ps (the fully tested released version from Ceolas, USA) or abc2ps (the latest version with new and experimental features from Germany) or abc2ps (precompiled versions for Win95)
  ... is Michael Methfessel's package for converting abc into sheet music which avoids the need to install TeX and MusicTeX. A Mac version is now available!
• abcm2ps (the home page in France) or abcm2ps (precompiled versions for Win95)
  ... is Jean-François Moine's clone of abc2ps which handles "organ stuff (many voices per staff)".
• abc2win
  ... is a package by Jim Vint aimed at PC users which supports the entry of abc notation and viewing the musical notes onscreen in Microsoft Windows including Windows 3.1, Windows for Workgroups 3.11 and Windows 95. It will read and update files of abc tunes. Tunes can be played over the PC speaker as a means of checking the accuracy of the notation. It is a shareware package so you can use it for free to view and play music and pay a (small) registration fee if you wish to print out the music.
• abcmus
  Henrik Norbeck's abc player/tunebook manipulator for MSWindows with lots of nice features (search, automatic chordsetting, different import and export options, etc).
• abc4mac from Wil Macaulay; or abc4mac at Ceolas, US
  A Mac program for abc users incorporating ports of abc2ps and abcMIDI.
• BarFly
  Phil Taylor's Mac program for handling abc musical notation. It can play, check, transpose and display tunes in abc notation.
• Muse
  ... is a full-scale shareware music editor from Laurie Griffiths that speaks abc. It can print, play, handle up to 8 harmony parts and even create guitar tablature and runs under Windows 95 or Windows NT.
• Melody Assistant
  ... is a full-scale shareware score editor that speaks abc. It can print, play and even create guitar tablature and runs on both PCs and Macs.
• abc2whis
  ... is a C++ code for producing penny whistle tablature from abc.
• MusicEase
  ... is a full-featured Windows based editor which imports abc and SongWright files. Edits, transposes, prints and plays. New features include automatic conversion to tablature, automatic addition of chord fret diagrams, and general MIDI instrument support. Also available from the same site is the Digital Tradition Folksong Player
• Runabc.tcl
  ... is a Tcl/Tk GUI (graphical user interface) for abc2ps & abc2midi from Seymour Shlien which helps you manage a database of abc tunes. Requires Tcl/Tk 8.0 or higher.
• AbcView
  ... is a Java applet from Rick Miller which displays abc on any Java 1.1 compliant web browser.
• JavaScore
  ... is another Java applet from Adrian Sulston which displays abc.
• TablEdit
  ... is a program for creating, editing, printing and listening to tablature and sheet music (standard notation) for guitar and other fretted, stringed instruments. Additionally, TablEdit supports tablature and standard notation for harmonica, mountain dulcimer, diatonic accordion, drums, violin, and banjo (even taking into consideration the special aspect of the fifth string). TablEdit can open/import ASCII, MIDI, ABC, Bucket O' Tab, Tabestry and Wayne Cripps files, as well as files created by earlier versions of TablEdit. Files can be saved in TablEdit format or exported to ASCII, ABC or MIDI formats.
• ABC2Tab
  ... is an ABC to Mountain Dulcimer ASCII Tablature convertor from Lyle Melick. It is currently available as a Windows95 & WindowsNT command line program and PERL source code.
• SET6
  ... is a package by William Robison specifically designed for notating Highland Bagpipe music. It has its own input language but a program to convert abc to this format is supplied. It can also handle Bagpipe Music Writer files and can output in a variety of different formats. Executables are freely supplied for PC and HP/UX users (but not the source code).
• playabc
  ... is a program by Don Ward which will play abc files through the speaker of most UNIX systems.
• PlayQABC
  ... is a part of Jim Vint's abc2win package for PC users, but is also available for free as a standalone to play abc tunes on any PC/DOS system.
• AbcPlay
  An ABC player for a PC Windows system with a Midi/Sound card. The program has a number of handy features to make to hearing of ABC files easy, also has cut/paste functions and the ability to save tunes as a Midi File. Written by Bernard Chenery, Tasmania.
• abcMIDI
  James Allwright's package to convert abc to MIDI and MIDI to abc. Since most standard music packages support MIDI output, this should make it easier to generate abc from commercial software. It is available on the web as C source code. It also contains abc2abc which can be used to transpose abc.
• abcMIDIfier
  A Windows utility by Dave Glenn which provides a user-friendly front-end to James Allwright's abcMIDI package.
• indexabc
  Ever wanted to find the name of a tune ... or remember how the last part of it goes? If you can remember the first couple of bars, you can use indexabc to search through all your tune files (or anyone else's that you've downloaded) to find tunes beginning with that sequence of notes! In any key!! Also useful for making a customised index of your abc tunes and sorting it in any one of hundreds of ways.
• ABCTools and ABCFind
  ABCTools is a Windows program that lets you transpose ABC tunes, make cheat sheets, check the syntax of your tune files, and more. ABCFind is a Windows program that lets you search ABC tune files for text or tune fragments. You can look for tune titles (or any text string) in your ABC files, search for tunes if you know the first (or any) bar of the music but not the title, compare tunes, and more.
• arranger
  ... is a PC program from Neil Jennings which reads abc format files, adds chord symbols, and rewrites a new abc file.
• sw2abc
  The Digital Tradition is a huge song archive in which the tunes for the songs are stored in SongWright format. Steve Allen's sw2abc is a gawk script that translates SongWright into abc.
• NMD2ABC
  ... a QBASIC program to translate the Nottingham Music Database format to abc.
Some suggestions (N.B. these recommendations are based on what software developers say about their programs rather than independent testing):
• To convert abc to sheet music:
  • If you know how to use a C compiler ... abc2ps abcm2ps
  • If you are using Windows ... abc2win; abc2ps; Melody Assistant; Muse; MusicEase; TablEdit;
  • If you are using a Mac ... abc4Mac; BarFly Melody Assistant;
  • For maximum control of the output, (if you know how to use a C compiler and have TeX installed) ... abc2mtex
  Note that to handle Postscipt files (generated by abc2ps, abcm2ps and abc2mtex) you may need to install Ghostscript and GSView
• To play music on your machine:
  • If you are using a UNIX machine ... playabc
  • If you are using a PC ... abc2win/PlayQABC; abcmus; AbcPlay; Melody Assistant; Muse;
  • If you are using a Mac ... BarFly; Melody Assistant;
  • If you can handle MIDI ... abcMIDI; abc MIDIfier (Windows version); abc4Mac (Mac version); AbcPlay (PC/Windows); abcmus (PC/Windows); MusicEase (PC/Windows); TablEdit (PC/Windows);