~1~ Peter Yarensky's abc 2.2 Help File This help file is intended to answer many questions about abc notation. It is centered around the as yet incomplete abc 2.2 standard but most of it should apply to the more widely used abc 2.1 standard. I wrote this gradually over a period of a few years for my own use but it occurred to me others might find it useful too. Parts of it paraphrase what’s in the published standard <http://abcnotation.com/wiki/abc:standard:v2.2>. Some of it I wrote to highlight topics not so prominent in the standard or to give illustrations of various topics. The choice of topics is strongly influenced by issues that have caused me confusion in writing out abc notation for fiddle tunes. ▶ I expect it will be useful as a reference, to find the answer to a question, or to learn more about a topic that is covered here. ▶ It is not intended to be used to learn abc notation. ★ For that I'd recommend How to get started with abc notation on the abc Notation Home Page. abc File Structure All abc tunes share a common structure. A tune should begin: ▶ % a b c -2.2 (or 2.1); This is optional but it causes strict interpretation according to the abc standard which may be important if you use any abc code that’s specific to a particular version. All abc documents should have the extension .a b c (all lower-case) File Headers & Tune Headers A file may have a file header at the top to set default values for a tune. ▶ It is likely to contain postscript commands to specify the layout and other This abc help file was written by Peter Yarensky <peter@pyarensky.com>. This version is © 2018. You may download a PDF version. It may be printed, and it may be distributed as long as it is unchanged. I hope you find it useful. ~ PeterThis abc help file was written by Peter Yarensky <peter@pyarensky.com>. This version is © 2018. You may download a PDF version. It may be printed, and it may be distributed as long as it is unchanged. I hope you find it useful. ~ Peter