Write on your charts the way you would with a pencil: fingerings, cues, a circled repeat, a note to the drummer. Your marks are your own, and they follow the chart into every plan and onto the stage.
Mark up a chart
Open a chart. See How do I rehearse a song in Songbook?
Tap the round Annotate button over the chart. In Perform, tap the pencil beside the position pill instead. The header changes to Annotating, and a tool rail appears down one side.
Choose a tool on the rail: Pen, Highlighter, Text note, or Eraser.
To change the ink, tap the color or the stroke width on the rail and pick one. There are seven colors and three widths.
Draw on the page with one finger. To add a note, choose Text note, tap the page where the note should go, and type.
On a chart with more than one page, use the strip of page thumbnails along the bottom to move to another page.
Tap Done.
The tools
Pen - freehand ink.
Highlighter - a wide, see-through stroke over the music.
Text note - tap the page to drop a note, then type it. Drag a note to move it. Tap a note to edit it or to choose Delete note.
Eraser - drag across a mark to remove it.
Undo - takes back your last change.
While you're annotating, one finger draws. Taps and swipes stop turning pages, swiping in from the edge doesn't go back, and a foot pedal is ignored. Tap Done to get them back.
Saving
There's no save button. Songbook saves a moment after every change, and again when you tap Done, leave the chart, or switch to another app. It saves to your device first and then to One Church. If you're offline, your marks stay on the device and upload the next time you open or mark up that chart with a connection.
Where your marks show up
You have one set of marks for each song, arrangement, and file. That has a few results worth knowing:
The same marks everywhere - the chart viewer, Rehearse, and Perform all show the same marks, in every plan that uses that file.
A different key is usually a different file - the chord chart One Church creates and the files uploaded for a key belong to that key, so marks on the key of G don't appear on the key of A. A shared arrangement file or a song file is the same file in every key, so marks on it show in every key.
A replaced file starts clean - see the warning below.
Warning: If someone uploads a new version of a PDF on the website, it's a new file. Every musician's marks on the old file stay with the old file and don't carry over. Let your team know before you replace a chart they've marked up.
Using more than one device
When you open a chart, Songbook compares the marks on your device with the marks saved to One Church and keeps whichever is newer. To pull in marks you saved on another device since you opened the chart, tap Refresh annotations. If Songbook can't connect, it says "Couldn't refresh annotations. Check your connection."
See your teammates' marks
While annotating, tap View as.
Choose whose marks to show:
Me - only your own marks. This is the default.
Others - your marks, plus every teammate's marks on the same file underneath them, each signed with the teammate's first name. You can look at them, but you can't change them.
None - no marks at all while annotating. Outside annotate mode it behaves like Me, so a chart never opens looking blank by accident.
Songbook remembers your choice on this device and uses it in Perform too. Teammates' marks need a connection and don't update live: new marks appear when you open the chart again or tap Refresh annotations.
Clear or hide marks
Clear all - removes every mark you've made on this file, after asking "Clear all annotations?". Your teammates' marks stay.
Annotations (squiggle) in the chart header - hides every mark on the chart without deleting anything, and hides the Annotate button with them. Marks come back when you open the chart again or change the key or file.
My marks disappeared
Check these in order:
The squiggle in the header is off. Tap it, or reopen the chart.
A different key, arrangement, or file is open. Marks belong to one file.
The file was replaced on the website. A new upload starts clean.
View as is set to None while annotating.
Someone else is signed in on a shared iPad.
Two devices disagreed. The newer copy wins when a chart opens. If you marked up your iPad offline and then changed the same chart on your phone, the phone's newer copy wins.