The fields are: Title, Composer, Lyricist, Date, Original records, Revival recordings, Chords, Lyrics, Notes, Fake book, Chord book (these last 2 fields tell you which book the tune is in)
I store all lyrics, as I find them, to tunes that might go in fake books. Most lyrics in .txt format in the lyrics .zip files have been copied from here to WordPad, saved as .txt files.
At present, I'm not updating the chords field--that will come when I've published the last 2 chordbooks and issued new editions of the first 2.
System requirement: a major database program that can import .dbf files that have Memo fields. (We use Lotus Approach) Your program must enable you to make multiple custom viewing screens. The most important custom screens you'll create are those for that have only the Lyrics or Chords fields, so you can make viewing fields large enough to see the complete contents with no more than one click down the scroller. When you make the field viewer, you can determine the font (eg. arial), style (eg. bold), and size (eg 12 or 14 points--whatever you can see best) You'll also be able to change the text--eg, on the chord charts, I've put 6 spaces between measures, but you might want 8 spaces; the chords and lyrics lines are single-spaced; you might want to double-space the lyrics. Since this is a database, you'll be able to add new tunes at will. Use it to store lyrics and chords you download from the web. If you need hard copies, just copy/paste into WordPad and format to suit your needs. You can also search by any field.
The Lyrics and Chords fields are "memo" fields. Rather than being stored in the database (.dbf) file, there is a separate .dbt file that has the data in it. It is a "text" file, which means you could open it in a word processor and use the "find" tool to locate the data for an individual tune. You could then copy and paste it into separate documents.
Before too long, you'll be able to carry to gigs a small laptop or notebook computer that has a separate or detachable screen which you can put on a music stand. Open Tune Base; the default view is the main, single record screen, which has all the fields, and tabs for each "view" (the main screen, columnar format, Chords, Lyrics). Use the main screen to "find" the tune to be played. Or use the columnar view (which looks like a spreadsheet) and scroll up/down to find tunes. Click on the chords or lyrics tab. (Ultimately, of course, fake and chord books will be on CD-Roms...)
When copying the charts from the chord books, we're modifying the chords as necessary to conform to the fake book sheets, adding verses, sometimes changing keys.
The lyrics are formatted to indicate the measures in the music, for correct phrasing.
Currently there are are 827 tunes--all of DixFB, most of the finished "Treasures" sheets, some tunes from the other books--and we add to it regularly. At this time, most records have only lyrics, not chords.
We're thinking about offering it as a subscription, or perhaps charging
a one-time fee of, say, $75, and eMailing updated copies as we add significant
numbers of tunes, or on request. We probably won't offer it formally until
all or most of our books are in it, but we wanted to get you thinking about
the possibilities...