Abc notes lite app

Recommendations: If you'd rather not read through the whole list, just take a look at my guide to abc software on the abcnotation blog.

Disclaimer: The software listed on this page is not the responsibility of abcnotation.com and its inclusion here does not represent a recommendation (although there are some excellent programs here). If you have any problems, suggestions or comments on any of the programs listed, please report it to the software developer.

First select your platform:

• Web-based software
• Windows software
• Mac software
• Linux/Unix software
• Mobile (iPhone, Android, Palm, etc) software
• Command Line software
• Multi-platform software

Software marked with a label has been added to this page within the last three months (although they may have been around for sometime before that).

Web-based software

Windows software

Mac software

Linux/Unix software

Mobile (iPhone, Android, Palm, etc) software

See also Moshe Braner's forum post on handling abc on Palm OS devices.

Command Line software

Multi-platform software

abc software packages

Note that to handle Postscript files (generated by several of these packages including abc2ps and its variants, and abc2mtex) you may need to install Ghostscript and GSView.

Software list (alphabetic order):-

• ABassC
  . is a freeware viewer/player from Norman Schmidt which runs on Palm Handhelds and displays music in either treble or bass clef.
• abc2cvm
  . will translate abc into Colecovision music data for use with the Colecovision utility library. From Philipp Klaus Krause.
• abc2harp
  . is a Perl script from Gek Low that adds harmonica (harp) tab to abc notation in the form of lyrics text.
• abc2index
  . is an open source project from Sam Cantrell that indexes an abc file to produce a general tune listing or an index by song category either in plain text or CSV format.
• abc2mma
  . is a Perl script from Gek Low that reads abc containing chords and produces MMA output.
• abc2mtex
  . 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 in educational establishments).
• abc2notes
  . is a utility from John Keeney which adds the ABC notes to ABC music notation in the form of lyrics text. It can be run as a window application, a Perl script, a webpage plugin, or as JavaScript application using node.js.
• abc2prt
  . from Guido Gonzato is a simple tool to extract parts from multivoice ABC music files.
• abc2score
  . is a Windows freeware program from John Layton. It can handle large files with speed and includes many features such as transposition, tune searching, midi saving and appending.
• abc2sco.tcl
  . from Hudson Lacerda converts ABC to Csound SCO and Scala SEQ formats.

• abc2svg
  . from Jef Moine, is a rewrite of abcm2ps into JavaScript and displays abc on a web page as staff notation.
• 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.
• abc2win
  . was a popular package by Jim Vint which supported the entry of abc notation and viewing the musical notes on PCs. Tunes could also be played as a means of checking the accuracy of the transcription. Although development was suspended in 2005 and it is no longer available, abc2win was a major contributor to the success of abc and is listed here for information.
• abc2xml
  . is a web service which will convert abc notation into MusicXML.
• abc2xmlGUI
  . is a utility from Michael Strasser which provides a graphical user interface to Willem Vree's conversion tools, abc2xml & xml2abc
• abc2xml / xml2abc
  . are command line utilities from Willem Vree that convert abc to/from MusicXML
• abc4j
  . is a java based API for abc. It provides a set of basic classes to easily manipulate abc tunes. In particular, the parser provides an object representation of abc notation on which developers can build their own high level features such as tune printing, midi playing, etc.
• Abc Converter
  . is a web-based abc-to-staff converter which transposes/converts abc tunes to pdf and midi. It also converts MusicXML into abc - just enter the XML into the converter and it will auto-detect and convert it. Originally developed by Jon Freeman at folkinfo.org and now hosted by Simon Becker at mandolintab.net.
• ABCedit-Mefa
  . is a Windows program (previously known as ABCedit) from Joop Coolegem that can be used for writing, printing and playing abc files. It also has a number of other features including fingering charts, transposition, calculation of chords, etc. (NB Users will need to install abcm2ps and abc2midi separately).
• ABCEditor
  . is a Windows program from Elizabeth Scarlett (hosted at Alf Warnock's site) which allows you to create, edit, play and organise abc files. It can transpose, reformat, adjust beaming, create cheet sheets and search for tunes. It uses abcm2ps for printing music, abc2midi for playing it, ABCTools for reformatting and ABCFind for searching.

• ABCexplorer
  . is a Windows program which allows you to create, edit, play and organise abc files. It uses abcm2ps for printing music and abc2midi for playing it.
• ABCJ
  . is a pure Java abc player/editor from Steve Spencer-Jowett which should run on any platform with Java installed. There is also a web-based applet.
• abc Joplin plugin
  . from Laurent Cozic is a plugin which renders abc for the Joplin open source note taking app.
• abcjs
  . is Gregory Dyke and Paul Rosen's javascript engine for rendering abcs on web pages. Can be used to transform a textarea into an abc editor, with scoresheet and audio, or as a plugin, rendering all the abc it finds on a page.
• abclua
  . is abc parsing for Lua. This library can read and emit (almost all) abc 2.1 and generate Lua tables representing the song structure. It can transform abc source into a token stream, transform a token stream into an abc string, transform a token stream into an event stream (with timing, repeats expanded etc.), and transform these event streams into MIDI.
• abcm2ps
  . is Jean-François Moine's clone of abc2ps which handles more than one voice per staff. Compiled versions for Windows, Mac & Linux may be found at the abcplus page.
• 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.
• AbcMode
  . from Matt Junker is an emacs major mode for editing abc files designed for use with abcm2ps and abc2midi, but easily customisable for other packages.
• abcmus
  Henrik Norbeck's abc player/tunebook manipulator for MSWindows with lots of nice features (search, automatic chordsetting, different import and export options, etc).
• Abc Music Notation Utilities
  . are a collection of TCL scripts from Luis Pablo Gasparotto for working with abc.

• ABCMusiEx
  (ABC Music Sight Reading Exercises Generator) . is open source software from Rodolfo Alcazar Portillo aimed at creating sight reading exercises which you can read and practise while the audio parts are being played!
• AbcNavigator
  . is a multi-featured program for handling abc files which can play tunes through your sound card, save them as MIDI files and which includes an abc editor with syntax highlighting.
• ABCp
  . is an embeddable library for abc notation. Its aim is to take care of all the parsing details for code developers.
• Abc parser
  . is a parser in Scala written by Daniel Watford for parsing, processing and serializing ABC Notation into ABC Objects
• ABCPig
  . is a web-based abc editor from Barnaby Walters which includes an interface for creating multi-voiced abc tunes.
• abcpp
  . from Guido Gonzato is a simple yet powerful preprocessor designed for, but not limited to, ABC music files. It provides conditional output, macros, symbol renaming, and file inclusion.
• Abc Session Viewer
  . is an Android/iPad app that displays, plays and transposes the 450+ tunes in Paul Hardy's Session Tunebook
• abctab2ps
  . is a program from Christoph Dalitz for typesetting music and lute/guitar tablature with abc. It is available for Mac, Windows & Linux platforms.
• abctool
  . is a python script from Atte André Jensen that manipulates abc files. It relies on external programs (such as abcm2ps) for certain tasks.
• ABC Transcription Tools
  . is a free, web-based, open-source tool from Michael Eskin for converting music in ABC format to standard notation and tablature, with playback and transposition options. It also allows you to generate tunebook PDF files with title pages, table of contents, tune index, custom headers, footers, and QR codes using the tool's built-in PDF Export feature, or use your browser's Print feature to quickly print or export tunebook PDFs. It also allows you to generate a PDF tunebook of incipits.

• ABC transposer
  . is an online service from Jens Wollschläger for transposing abc tunes.
• abctransposer
  . is a web-based javascript program from Jens Wollschläger that can transpose abc.
• $ABC_UI
  . is a JavaScript package from Christophe Poudras which allows you to render abc tunes in staff notation on a web page.
• ABCViewer
  . is an abc viewer from Dave Holland which runs on Palm Pilots.
• abcweb
  . from Willem Vree, is a javascript program that runs in the browser to render a score file (MusicXML or ABC) and play a media file (audio or video). It also displays a cursor in the score that is synchronized with the playback.
• ABC WordPress Plugin
  . is a JavaScript plugin for WordPress from Paul Rosen which allows you to easily include music on a WordPress website or blog.
• A La Mode
  . is an Android app from Carl Turner for organising, viewing, playing and transposing abc tunes. It also includes a web-based interface to your data.
• BIABTools
  . is a Windows program from Alf Warnock which can convert certain types of Band-in-a-Box files to abc.
• Blue Notes
  . is an iPhone app from Tino Heth that can import abc files into its database of songs. It currently focuses on harmonica players and can display tabs and lyrics. Transposing of tunes is supported.
• BowTIE
  . is a Windows application from David Randolph designed to help trumpet and horn players learn to transpose which uses abc as its native file format. Euphonium and tuba players may also find BowTIE useful for learning fingerings on instruments in various keys.

• Busker
  . is Windows shareware from Jos Mass which can play abc files and automatically add accompaniment based on the chords in the abc file. The abc files can also be printed in staff notation.
• Choon Player
  . is a WordPress plugin by Andy Linton which plays abc files and supports loops and slowing down music for learning by ear.
• Code Sounding
  . is a bit unusual - using abc, it converts computer source code to sound files. For programmers who want to hear the "inner breath" of their software. From Roberto Mannai.
• Colin Hume's converter
  . is an online abc converter from Colin with lots of options to play and print music, including transposition
• Composer
  . is Python music composition software using deep learning based on ABC notation
• DokuWiki ABC Plugin
  . is a DokuWiki plugin which will render abc scores inside a DokuWiki site. From Anika Henke.
• EasyABC
  . by Nils Liberg is an open source program which allows you to edit and play abc files. It supports conversion from MusicXML and MIDI to ABC. The latter uses a custom implementation (midi2abc is not used) in order to produce very readable ABC output. Direct midi input is supported for people with a midi keyboard. It uses abcm2ps for printing music and abc2midi for playing it. Nils' original version is available at nilsliberg.se; the latest Windows & Mac versions, patched and maintained by Seymour Schlien, are available from sourceforge with Linux binaries available from the ABC Plus page.
• elm-abc-player
  . by John Watson explores the possibilities of playing ABC notation directly in the browser within an Elm (0.18) application.
• eTuneBook
  . is a web app from Martin Fleischmann which allows you to manage abc tune collections in your browser.
• fiddleabc
  . is a program from Mike Casey for PCs which plays abc tunes while displaying the notes on a screen fiddle/banjo fingerboard.

• Five Line Skink
  . is a java application from Wil Macaulay which supports the abc 1.6 standard. It can open, edit, save, and display abc files (and runs on Unix & Linux platforms, as well as Windows & Mac).
• flabc
  . is an abc editor from Christoph Dalitz based on the cross platform C++ GUI toolkit FLTK. It is available for Windows, MacOS X and Linux platforms.
• Folk Tune Library
  . is an Android app from Serge Meunier that contains a library of folk tunes, stored in ABC notation. The app allows display of the ABC notation and sheet music, as well as playback and transposition. The app also allows importing and exporting of user defined tunes, as well as creating personal lists.
• GTKSourceView abc
  . from Björn Petersen, is a language file for abc syntax highlighting in GEdit or any other editor using GtkSourceView
• Harmony
  . from N. Jennings, is a progam which can import/export abc designed originally to add chords to a melody. It has grown to provide editing, scoring and playback of tunes, as well as creating MIDI files. Also includes guitar, anglo concertina and melodeon tablature
• Harmony Assistant
  . is a full-scale score editor that speaks abc and the commercial version of Melody Assistant. It can print, play and even create guitar tablature and runs on both PCs and Macs.
• Haskell abcnotation package
  . is a a Haskell representation and parser for abc notation from Hans Hoglund.
• iPABC
  . is an abc player/editor from Steve Spencer-Jowett which runs on the iPhone and iPod Touch. Although the full version is not free, there is a Lite version that stores a limited number of tunes which is free.
• jcabc2ps
  . is John Chambers' clone of abc2ps. It implements a number of extensions to handle the variants of abc that the abc tune finder finds on the web. These include several syntaxes for clefs, multiple voices, endings past the second, and non-classical key signatures.
• JedABC
  . from Guido Gonzato is an extension to the Jed editor that turns it into a powerful and easy to use IDE (Integrated Development Environment) for ABC files, with full integration with converters, players and previewers.

• m2g
  . is a WIndows program from Jerry Dallal which can add guitar or mandolin tablature to abc files.
• MAIDENS
  . is a free composition tool from Claudius Iacob, which allows musicians to generate music based on algorithms. The base application allows you to edit, save, playback and export the score using a graphical interface.
• mc musiceditor
  . is a music editor from Reinier Maliepaard which speaks standard abc (as well as its own modification of abc). It also contains a number of utilities including transposition, extracting parts and file management.
• MediaWiki Score
  . is an extension for MediaWiki which will render abc scores inside a MediaWiki site.
• Melody Assistant
  . is a full-scale shareware score editor that speaks abc and the shareware version of Harmony Assistant. It can print, play and even create guitar tablature and runs on both PCs and Macs.
• microabc
  . is free software from Hudson Lacerda which generates macros to represent microtonal music in ABC notation.
• MidiZyx2abc
  . is a program from Alexander Scheutzow which converts midi to abc and will work with multi-part scores and lyrics. It is written in Java so should run on any platform in principle.
• ModPlug XMMS
  . is abc plugin for XMMS under linux. Peter Grootswagers recommends libmodplug which can be obtained from the CVS tree.
• Mozart
  . is fully featured music notation software from David Webber which can import and export abc.
• music21
  . is a set of tools for helping scholars and other active listeners answer questions about music quickly and simply. It can read abc, display music (via MusicXML), play MIDI sound and transpose, as well as offering many other utilities.

• MusiCAD
  . is a fully featured score editor from Musys Software which can import and export abc. Although MusiCAD is not freeware, it's use with abc does not require payment.
• MusicEase
  . is a full-featured editor which imports abc, MusicXML and SongWright files. Free version edits, transposes, prints and plays music, and features include automatic conversion to tablature, automatic addition of chord fret diagrams, and general MIDI instrument support. Professional version (commercial) also available.
• musicJSON2abc
  . is a command line tool from Lukas Lamm to convert musicJSON to abc notation.
• Music Markdown
  . is a Web App which supports abc notation and that renders markdown with embedded music from files in GitHub
• musicsheets
  . is a plugin for TiddlyWiki5 from Simon Huber which uses abcjs to render and play abc notation in TiddlyWiki notebooks.
• Mxml2abc
  . is a command line tool from Steve Merrony which converts single and multiple voice MusicXML files into ABC files.
• Norman Schmidt's abc converter
  . a web-based abc-to-staff converter from normanschmidt.net which converts abc tunes to staff notation.
• Nota ABC
  . is an iOS app from Davide Benini to manage your abc repertoire, backed by an archive of +40,000 tunes. It includes score, abc and audio previews, allows you to edit the tunes and automatically synchs with other devices.
• P4 Music
  . is a chat/blogging platform to share & save content which now supports abc
• PalmABC
  . is an abc player/editor from Steve Spencer-Jowett which runs on Palm Pilots.

• PianoHub
  . is a piano learning web app from Jan Prochazka with an online abc editor which can import MIDI (the editor can be used indepently from the piano app)
• playabc
  . is a program by Don Ward which will play abc files through the speaker of most UNIX systems.
• PmWiki AbcMusic
  . is a PmWiki cookbook recipe which will render abc scores inside a PmWiki site. From Patrick Michaud.
• PocketABC
  . is an abc player/editor from Steve Spencer-Jowett which runs on Pocket PC 2002 devices such as the iPaq.
• react-abc2svg
  . is a react.js component that uses abc2svg to display ABC notation
• Redrose
  . is an integrated environment, from Benoît Rouits, to write music in ABC syntax and play, preview and print the sheet music.
• 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.
• ScoreRender
  . is a plugin, from Abel Cheung, for the popular blogging system WordPress, which renders sheet music fragments into images. It supports abc as well as several other notation systems.
• Sfortzando
  . is a set of Sublime Text syntax definitions for ABC notation (a rewrite of Sublime ABC and an advanced ABC notation plugin)
• Songs2See
  . is a gaming environment from Songquito for learning to play a musical instrument. The Songs2See Editor now includes support for abc notation.

• Stack Edit
  . is a full-featured, open-source Markdown editor from Benoit Schweblin that supports abc notation
• Sublime ABC
  . is a set of Sublime Text 2 syntax definitions for ABC notation
• SublimeLinter-contrib-abcm2ps
  . is a SublimeLinter plugin for ABC Notation error checking, using abcm2ps
• TablEdit
  . is a Windows program for creating, editing, printing and listening to tablature and sheet music (standard notation) for guitar and other fretted, stringed instruments (including 5 string banjo) as well as harmonica, diatonic accordion, drums and violin. TablEdit can both read & write ascii, MIDI & abc files (and read Bucket O' Tab & Tabestry).
• The Craic
  . is an iOS app from Wil Macaulay that enables you to find, edit and view abc tunes on iPhones and iPads.
• tonal-abc-notation
  . is an npm JavaScript package, part of the tonal music theory library, which converts abc notation to / from scientific notation
• Toolbox
  . from the Irish Session, New Zealand, is a collection of web apps which can be used for various purposes including editing/playing/transposing abc code as well adding note names (Add Blackboard ABC).
• TradMusician
  . is an Android app from Nicolas Jouve which can display abc in standard notation, play it with midi and synchronize with an online tunebook.
• TradTunes
  . is an iPhone app that holds a database of over 4,000 (mainly) Irish Trad tunes.
• TuneBook
  . is an iPhone app from Jerry Huxtable for viewing abc tunes in staff notation.

• TunePal
  . is an abc player and query-by-playing search engine from Bryan Duggan which runs on iPhone, iPod touch, iPad & android devices. Also a free online service.
• VexABC
  . from Mikael Nousiainen, is an abc notation parser and renderer for VexFlow
• WebEdit
  … from Colin Hume is a general web site editor which can also be used to process abc files. As well as viewing scores, playing sound, reformatting and transposing, it also includes an FTP client so you can upload your abc (and other) files to a server.
• xml2abc-js
  . from Willem Vree, is a javascript program that runs in the browser to convert selected MusicXML files to abc code. It also shows a preview of the score next to the abc translation.
• YAPS
  (yet another abc to PostScript converter) . is James Allwright's merge of the abcMIDI parser and the library of PostScript routines from abc2ps.
• Zap's abc
  . is an Android app from Jonas Petersson for displaying and playing abc tunes.
• Zupfnoter
  . is is an open source, web based tool from Bernhard Weichel to create scores for Table harps