User Guide

Overview

Song Slides turns hymn and worship-song lyrics into clean, projector-ready slides—free, with no signup, no watermarks, and fully open source. This guide walks through the three steps of the builder: choosing your lyrics, adding an optional background, and downloading your slides as PowerPoint, PDF, or images.

Step 1 — Choose your lyrics

Start by telling Song Slides which lyrics to put on your slides. You have two ways to do this:

1. Public-domain hymn. Select a hymnal, then search by title or number and pick a hymn from the list. The lyrics load automatically, already split into slides.

   Pro tip: browse the full hymn library if you want to explore titles before you build, or jump to a themed collection.

2. Paste your own lyrics. Type or paste lyrics directly. Separate each slide (verse, chorus, etc.) with a blank line, and label lines like “Chorus” are kept as you wrote them.

   You can also Import a file—ChordPro (.cho, .crd, .chordpro, .pro), plain text (.txt), or OpenSong / OpenLyrics (.xml). Use Clean up pasted text to tidy spacing, and any chords are removed automatically.

3. Review how the lyrics break into slides. Adjust the blank lines between sections until each slide holds the right amount of text for your screens.

   Pasted or imported lyrics are not stored. You are responsible for holding the appropriate license (for example, CCLI) for any copyrighted song you bring in.

Step 2 — Add a background (optional)

1. Once your lyrics are set, move to the Background step.
2. Pick a background image from the grid to set the look of every lyric slide at once.
3. Prefer a plain look? Choose none to keep slides clean and text-forward.
4. The preview updates instantly so you can see how your lyrics sit on the chosen background.

Backgrounds are optional—skip this step entirely if you just need readable text on a simple slide.

Step 3 — Download your slides

When your lyrics and background look right, head to the Download step and choose the format that fits your worship software:

• PowerPoint (.pptx) — open and edit in PowerPoint, Keynote, or Google Slides, or drop straight into ProPresenter and similar tools.
• PDF — a fixed, print-ready file that looks the same on any device.
• Images (.zip) — one image per slide, handy for software that imports backgrounds or static images.

Not sure which to pick? PowerPoint is the most flexible if you want to keep editing; images are easiest if your projection software just needs one picture per slide.

Step 4 — Preview and refine

1. Use the live preview to confirm each hymn or lyric slide reads cleanly from the back of the room.
2. If a slide is too crowded, go back to Step 1 and add a blank line to split it into two.
3. Try a different background—or none—if the text is hard to read, then download again.

Once you’re happy with the preview, click “Download” and grab your slides as a PowerPoint .pptx deck, a PDF, or a .zip of images.

FAQ