What is the proper formatting for .txt files to "Import as Lyrics"?

Question

Greetings all,

I am attempting to import all our songs as .txt files using the Import as Lyrics function in the Song Library. All seems to work as expected except for the failure to recognize Attribution even though it is very much present (see picture below).

The Proclaim Support pages are not clear at all as to the standard formatting of the text within the .txt file. Presently, the file is formatted as below (the raw form of the above):

The support page says to format as follows:

Title: Test Song

Author: Test Contributor

Copyright: Public Domain

CCLI:(needs to be blank)

Song ID:

Hymnal:

Notes:

Groups:

PlayOrder:

I would appreciate any help here.

Nancy Bell · Accepted Answer

Your file doesn't match the format described in the support page.  The first line should be "Title: ", followed by the actual title.  For your example, the first line should be "Title: 10,000 Reasons (Bless The Lord)".  The second line should be "Author: Jonas Myrin, Matt Redman".  And so on.  Each line has a label, then a colon and a space, then the content for that label.  I leave out lines that are not needed or are empty:  Song ID, Hymnal, Notes, and Groups.  If your church uses hymnals, you'd want to include that line.  And I do put in the CCLI number for the song. For your example, the line would be "CCLI: 6016351".  Also note that all this info is at the beginning of the song, followed by the verses and choruses, etc.  And you can put multiple songs in one file, as long as they all follow this format.

Nancy Bell · Accepted Answer

I also don't recommend stringing an entire verse into one line.  Break the verse into lines the way you want Proclaim to display it.  You can even insert blank lines to break the verse into multiple screens if you want.  Proclaim uses the verse labels to tell it where the verse starts and ends.  I also have a colon at the end of each verse label, but that might be optional.