Share, print & export

A dance or a program is only half useful while it lives on one device. This guide covers every way to get your work out of Caller's Compendium — as text you can paste into an email, as a PDF you can print, or as a file you can hand to another caller — and, just as importantly, what the app deliberately leaves behind.

Finding your way around these words. On-screen buttons and screens are written in bold — like Export, Copy set list, and Continue. The first time a dance term appears it links to the Glossary, so you can get a plain-language definition without losing your place.

Looking for a copy of everything — your whole collection, your settings, your dialects — to move to a new device? That is a different job, and Backup & portability covers it.

Share a dance

Open a dance and choose Export. (On a narrow screen, the same actions are in the dance's More actions menu.) There are five actions:

Export / print PDF is a real print path, not a save-to-PDF shortcut: your operating system's own dialog opens, and from there you can send it to a printer, save it as a PDF, or cancel. This works on every platform the app runs on, including Linux.

A PDF can print Japanese text (hiragana, katakana and the everyday kanji). Rarer kanji, Chinese-only characters and Korean may still show as empty boxes.

Which words a dance export uses

Text you share or copy, and a PDF you print, are written in your active dialect — the one selected in the app right now. Hand a card to a caller and it reads the way you speak.

This is the active dialect, not the dance detail screen's Canonical switch. Flipping that switch changes what you see on screen; it does not change what an export contains. To export in different words, switch your active dialect first — see Dialect. If Auto-convert all discouraged terms is on (the default), common older terms are also shown in current wording — see Discouraged terms.

The field labels around the content — Formation, Level, Figures, Calling notes, and so on — follow the app's language setting, not your dialect.

A dance file (Share dance file or Export dance as JSON) is different: it carries the dance itself rather than your wording of it, so it opens in the recipient's own dialect.

Share a dance file

Share dance file and Export dance as JSON build the same file: the dance, its credited choreographers, its tags and difficulty level, the published sources it cites, and its custom fields. The only difference is the name — .ccshare or .json. Choreographers' private details are removed (see What stays private), and custom fields with Include in sharing turned off are left out.

On Linux the system has no file share sheet, so Share dance file is labelled Save dance file… and saves the file through the system dialog instead; choosing Share in the JSON dialog does the same.

Opening either file in Caller's Compendium goes through import review before anything is added. Tags, sources, and custom fields the recipient already has are reused, and their own edits are never overwritten. If the file has a custom field with the same key as one of theirs but set up differently, the import is refused rather than changing what their field means. After a successful import, the confirmation message offers Undo.

Share a program

Open a program and choose Export. Five actions:

The set list — text and PDF alike — is titles, event details, and slot notes by default, with each dance's author shown next to its title if you have authors turned on (see Choose which dance fields appear below). When you choose Share set list (text), Copy set list, or Export / print PDF, the app asks Include figures? with two choices:

• Set list only — titles, event details, slot notes, and the author (the default). None of your other selected dance fields appear here — formation, level, mixer, status, phrase, calling notes, walkthrough, and tunes only ever show up on the richer per-dance card described next.
• Set list and figures — appends a full card for each dance after the set list, showing every dance field you've selected alongside its figures. The cards use your app language for field labels; the figure text uses your active dialect. Alternate dances are marked "Alternate".

If none of the program's dances have any structured figures, the question is skipped and the export proceeds as set-list-only automatically.

Cancelling the dialog (or dismissing it) stops the export — nothing is shared or copied.

If something goes wrong the app says so plainly — "Couldn't share this set list", "Couldn't export this set list" — and nothing is sent.

Choose which dance fields appear

Settings › Defaults has a checklist for every non-figures dance field a dance card can show: author, formation, level, mixer, status, phrase, calling notes, walkthrough, and suggested tunes. Author is on by default, matching every export before this setting existed; suggested tunes is off by default, since no export showed them before.

Turning a field off removes it everywhere it would otherwise appear — but author is the only one of these fields the plain numbered set-list line ever shows. The rest only appear on the richer per-dance card: the "Set list and figures" appendix, a single dance's own Share dance (text)/ Copy dance card, or any PDF. Figures are not part of this list; they stay controlled by the Include figures? choice above.

Share a program with its dances

Share (program + dances) is the one to reach for when you are handing an evening to another caller. It builds a single self-contained file — a .ccshare file — containing:

• the program itself;
• every dance the program's slots refer to;
• the choreographers credited on those dances;
• the tags, published sources, and custom fields those dances use, so the recipient can import them completely; and
• the program's linked venue, if it has one.

On Linux the system has no file share sheet, so this action is labelled Save program file… and saves the file through the system dialog instead.

Custom fields with Include in sharing turned off are left out, values included, exactly as they are for a single dance. If a definition one of the dances depends on cannot be found, the share stops with an error instead of sending the file.

The file goes to your system's share sheet, so how it travels is up to you — AirDrop, email, a messaging app, a USB stick.

On the receiving end, opening the file takes the recipient to Caller's Compendium's import review screen, loaded with the program, its dances, and its venue. Nothing is added until the recipient confirms. Bringing the same file in twice does not pile up duplicate dances — the importer matches what is already there.

Venues are matched more narrowly. Importing the same program again, or another program from the same sender that uses the same venue, reuses the venue the first import added. But a shared file carries no address (see What stays private), so the app can't tell that a shared venue is a hall you already have in your own records, or that venues from two different callers are the same place. In those cases you get a separate, name-only venue record. Nothing is lost or overwritten, and you can tidy the extras in Settings › Program › Venues › Manage venues.

The same thing, as a plain .json file

Export as JSON file builds exactly the same content as Share (program + dances) — same program, same dances with their full figures, same choreographers, same venue, same privacy rules. You then choose Save, Copy raw JSON, Share, or Cancel. The only difference in the file itself is the name: .json instead of .ccshare. A JSON file is a plain-text format that almost any device can open.

On Linux, the third button reads Save as… instead of Share and saves the file through the system dialog, because there is no file share sheet to open. On desktop, Save opens a native file-save dialog. On Android and iOS it opens the platform's document-save flow so you can choose a user-accessible location. If the platform reports the destination, the confirmation names it. The native save flow handles an existing filename rather than silently overwriting an earlier export. Dismissing the choice dialog or the save dialog produces no file, clipboard change, or share.

That matters on the receiving end. A .ccshare file is Caller's Compendium's own file type: on a Mac, iPhone, or iPad with the app installed, opening one goes straight to import review, and on any device the recipient can bring it in with Settings › General › Import…. A device without the app may not know what to do with it at all. A .json file is a plain document anywhere, so reach for this one when you are:

• emailing the program to someone who hasn't installed the app yet;
• putting it somewhere that rejects unfamiliar file types; or
• wanting to open and read the file yourself.

Either file imports back into the app the same way, so nothing is lost by choosing one over the other.

Print the programming matrix

The programming matrix has its own PDF — it is not in the Export menu. Open a program's Matrix tab and use Export or print matrix as PDF. The button is unavailable while the matrix is empty.

The matrix PDF is laid out in landscape, uses your active dialect for the move column headings, and prints a legend above the grid:

The matrix covers dances only, so if your program includes notes or breaks the PDF says how many were left out. Hiding a column on screen is a viewing convenience and does not narrow the export — every move column prints.

What stays private

Exports are a privacy boundary, and the app treats them as one. Some things never leave, and one thing asks you first.

Never included

• A choreographer's email, location, and deceased mark. These are marked private in the editor and are removed from anything you share — see Write & edit dances. The choreographer's name, website, and notes do travel.

• A venue's street address. The address lines, city, state or province, country, and postcode of a saved venue record are left out of everything you share, print, or copy — the .ccshare file, the JSON file, the PDF, and the text set list alike. There is no tick box for these: they are never sent. What does travel is the venue's name, so a recipient still knows which hall you mean; the .ccshare and JSON files also carry its website, time, schedule, price, sponsor, event name, and notes, and the PDF prints all of those except the notes.

  Your own copy is untouched — the address is still there in the venue record, and a backup still contains it. This is only about what leaves the device. A program's free-text venue label is different: it is shared exactly as you typed it, so leave an address out of it if you don't want that sent.

Included only if you say so

If you export a program as a PDF, JSON, or share it as program + dances, and that program is linked to a venue that has contact people recorded, the app stops and asks before any delivery choice:

Include venue contact details in this export? These are personal contact details for the venue. They're left out of this export unless you choose to include them.

You get a tick box for each contact detail the venue actually has — up to two contacts, each with a name, phone, and email. Every box starts unticked.

• Tick only what you mean to send, then choose Continue.
• Choose Continue with nothing ticked and the export goes ahead with all contact details removed.
• Choose Cancel, or dismiss the dialog, and the whole export is called off — nothing is written, copied, printed, or shared.

Whatever you leave unticked is genuinely absent from the file, not hidden inside it. The venue's other details — its name, website, time, schedule, price, sponsor, event name, and notes — are not personal contact details, so they are not part of this choice: the .ccshare and JSON files carry all of them, and the PDF prints all of them except the notes. Its street address is always left out; see Never included above.

You will not see this dialog when there is nothing to ask about: a program with no linked venue, or a venue with no contact people recorded, exports straight away. Text set lists and dance exports never show it either, because neither carries contact people in the first place.

A note on diagnostics

The app's diagnostics log is separate from exports. It never leaves your device unless you export it yourself, and an exported log has your content removed unless you choose otherwise. Settings › Diagnostics explains what the log contains and what Include full detail changes.

Exports versus backups

They are different tools for different jobs:

The Include in sharing setting on a custom field applies to share/export files sent to other people. Your own backup remains complete, including fields whose sharing setting is turned off.

Because a backup is complete and unredacted, treat a backup file as you would your own address book — it is for you, not for sharing.

Where to go next

• Build the program you are about to share: Programs & matrix
• Bring someone else's file in: Imports & migration
• Move everything to a new device: Backup & portability
• Change the words an export uses: Dialect
• Record the details that travel with a dance: Write & edit dances

Not sure what a word means? The Glossary has plain definitions for every term used across these guides.