Compare the Plain Text, Markdown, ChordPro, and Fumen features that PagePilot Viewer provides and choose the right format for your material.
Choosing a Text Page Format
Choosing a Text Page Format
Text pages can use Plain Text, Markdown, ChordPro, or Fumen. Although all four formats are text-based, they are designed for different kinds of material.
This page describes what PagePilot Viewer itself can display.
Quick Choice
| Format | Best for | How you write it |
|---|---|---|
| Plain Text | Unformatted lyrics, notes, and running orders | What you type is what you get |
| Markdown | Lyrics, rehearsal notes, MC notes, and checklists organized with headings and lists | # Heading - bullet **bold** |
| ChordPro | Vocal, guitar, and band charts that align chords with lyrics | [C]Hello [Am]world |
| Fumen | Chord charts with measures, rhythm, repeats, and navigation marks | Barlines and repeat marks written out as text |
Plain Text
Plain Text is the simplest format. It uses only characters and line breaks, without interpreting markup.
It works well for lyrics-only pages, short performance notes, and running orders that do not need heading levels or special chord positioning. Its advantage is that there is no notation to learn and typed symbols are not reinterpreted as markup.
Markdown
Markdown is useful when you want to organize text with headings and lists and emphasize selected passages. It can combine lyrics, rehearsal reminders, MC notes, stage directions, and checklists on one page.
PagePilot Viewer displays headings, bulleted and numbered lists, task lists, bold, italics, strikethrough, block quotes, and tables. Its support is based on GitHub Flavored Markdown (GFM), with PagePilot Viewer-specific underline and color markup added. Links are displayed as text, but tapping one in Preview or the Score Viewer does not open the destination.
ChordPro
ChordPro places chord tokens such as [C] at matching positions in the lyrics, then displays the chords above those lyrics. It is useful when lyrics are the main content and the player also needs chords and song information.
PagePilot Viewer handles title and subtitle; key, BPM or tempo, time signature, and capo; comments; Verse, Chorus, Bridge, Tab, and Grid sections; page breaks; and transpose directives in the source. It can also transpose the chords together and offers PagePilot and ChordWiki display presets. For vocal accompaniment, singer-guitarist charts, and band songs where players follow the lyrics, the chord-to-lyric relationship is easy to read and the chart is easy to adapt to a new key.
PagePilot Viewer supports a subset of the ChordPro specification. Other directives are displayed as comments. Arbitrary section types and nested sections are not supported. ChordWiki is a display preset for ChordPro, not a separate text page format.
Fumen
Fumen is a text-based chord chart format that can express measure boundaries, durations, rests, repeats, and navigation marks as well as chords. It is most useful when a band or session group needs to share the musical roadmap rather than read lyrics.
PagePilot Viewer bundles Fumen v1.3.3 and supports its public notation. Chords, barlines, time signatures, durations, rests, syncopation, alternate endings, simile marks, Segno, Coda, and D.S./D.C. can all live in one source. For example, a chart can describe a four-measure progression, repeat it with a different ending, and direct the player back to Segno with D.S. See the official Fumen documentation and official cheat sheet for notation details.
Start with the copyable examples on the PagePilot website: a four-measure progression followed by an example with A/B sections and a repeat. The sources contain no Japanese text. Fumen's Structure explains measures and rows, Chords lists chord symbols, and the Playground lets you edit the official examples in a browser.
Whole-chart transposition uses Fumen's official %KEY and %TRANSPOSE directives. The chord body remains in the original key, while Preview, the Score Viewer, and PDF export show the transposed chords. Explicit staff pitches outside chord symbols do not transpose, so PagePilot Viewer asks for confirmation when they are present. See Transpose for details.
Fumen does not replace a conventional score or rhythm chart with melody, staves, and detailed articulation or rhythm. Use a PDF, image, or a score created from MusicXML for that material. ChordPro is usually simpler when the main requirement is matching chords to lyrics.
Fumen decides the layout on its own, so font size, line spacing, and page margins cannot be adjusted. This fixed layout is a limitation on display adjustments; it does not guarantee or optimize placement or readability.
If You Are Unsure
- Use Plain Text when characters and line breaks are enough
- Use Markdown for structured general-purpose text
- Use ChordPro when playing chords while following lyrics
- Use Fumen for a progression with measures, rhythm, and repeats
After choosing a format, see Text Page Editor for editing and preview instructions.