m2g for Beginners

m2g is a utility that works hand-in-hand with Christoph Dalitz's abctab2ps to produce guitar tab from abc music files. abctab2ps and the program abc2ps on which it is based were written for people familiar with command-line interfaces. However, with the proliferation of personal computers over the last few years, such users are now the exception rather than the rule. In order to make M2G accessible to a wider audience, I've written these installation and operating instructions. My goal is to make them bullet-proof. If anything is unclear to you, please contact me. I'll help the best I can and I'll modify the instructions based on your input.

• M2G is for computers using the Windows/DOS operating systems. There are no Mac or Linux versions.
• First, visit the GhostScript freeware website to download and install BOTH GhostScript and GhostView. Install GhostScript, then GhostView. I recommend installing these programs even if you have a PostScript printer so that you can view the output files without printing them.

  (This paragraph is optional. Read it but don't act on it if the idea of installing and tweaking programs makes you even the slightest bit uncomfortable.) Both GhostScript and GhostView may be used without charge for noncommercial purposes. However, every time an unregistered copy of GhostView starts, it displays a panel urging registration for those who might wish to offer financial support. The panel cannot be bypassed without registering no matter how many times it is viewed. The user must interact with the program by clicking on the panel to proceed. Versions 2.9 and earlier have no nag. They may be found through a web search for gsv29w32. If the nag annoys you so much that you end up installing version 2.9 of GhostView, you will have to install version 6.x of GhostScript, too. The current version 7 of GhostScript is not compatible with versions of GhostView earlier than 4.0.

• Download Christoph Dalitz's program abctab2ps and install it by double-clicking on the zip file and extracting all of the contents to the folder of your choice.
• Download my file m2g.zip into the folder that contains the abctab2ps program.
• Extract the files from m2g.zip. You may now erase m2g.zip if you wish.
• To see the program in action, you must open a DOS window and change the prompt to the directory that contains m2g and abctab2ps. At the prompt, type m2g masons. Then, press Enter. The program will respond that masons.ps was created.
• Your folder will now contain the file masons.ps. The icon will be a Ghost wearing red eyeglasses. Double-click on this file to see it in GhostView. Cool, huh?

  If GhostView says it can't locate GhostScript, then open GhostView, go to Options/Advanced Setup. and fix the pointer to the GhostScript DLL.

• For those who already know about PATH, SET, and AUTOEXEC.BAT: To use m2g from any directory, m2g and abctab2ps must be in directories listed in the PATH statement. It will also be necessary to add the statement set ABCTABFONTS=c:\[abc fonts directory] to the AUTOEXEC.BAT file, where [abc fonts directory] is the directory containing the abctab2ps fonts. For example, if the abctab2ps program were in the folder c:\abctab2ps, the statement would be set ABCTABFONTS=c:\abctab2ps\fonts

Windows causes some confusion over file names by failing to display the .Y portion of file names for many file types. I recall one occasion helping a user who had inadvertently, we discovered, been creating files with names of the form song.txt.txt! To display your files' full names, go to My Computer on the desktop. Then, from the View menu go to Options and click on "Show all files". Unclick "Hide MS-DOS file extensions for file types that are registered and click on Okay.

Please let me know if you encounter any roadblocks. Now that you're up and running, you can experiment with m2g's options. One will even let you transpose a tune to a different key automatically!

Enjoy!