Transpose chords without square brackets after pasting from Ultimate

[Mr. K. Ross "Kim" Gardner]

Most of the time, chords that are in the line above lyrics won’t transpose with sharp and flat buttons.
This occurs after I paste from Ultimate.

https://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com

[arlo]

This would happen if the lyrics contain any square brackets but the chords aren't in square brackets. In my apps, square brackets should only be used for ChordPro-style chord positioning, but some people who write lead sheets use them to highlight labels like Verse, Chorus, etc.

[Mr. K. Ross "Kim" Gardner]

Help Desk Replied to me....

“We had to make a change to the transpose functionality a few releases back. If there is ANY text in the lyrics/chords that is surrounded with square brackets, the app now assumes that all chords will be surrounded with square brackets for the purposes of transposition.

If you have a song that will not transpose, check to be sure that one of the following is true:

All chords are surrounded with square brackets (and ideally in-lined into the lyric text)
-OR-
There are no square brackets anywhere in the text.”

I found that, in fact, square bracket pairs cause the problem. As long as the opening [ can find a ] to close it it will stop transpose. This could be used to prevent band mates from transposing. Even if the [ is at the beginning and the ] is at the end, transpose is prevented. I needed only to erase one of the square brackets to get transpose to work. I’m not sure if this will cause problems later if no opening square brackets [ exist in the lyrics but closing square brackets ] do appear.

[Mr. K. Ross "Kim" Gardner]

Transpose is also extremely useful to batch change all Bb to B♭ and get authentic sharp and flat symbols. Just transpose one semi then reverse transpose. Which direction this is done depends on the desired result. One direction would yield B♭ and the opposite would yield A#

[Mr. K. Ross "Kim" Gardner]

Even this string got recognized as chords and was transposed from G to F

WHITE CHRISTMAS
the chords you wil be using are; in order
F-Gm-C-B♭-C7-F-F7-B♭-B♭m-F-Dm-Gm-C7-F FOR THE FIRST VERSE, THEN SECOND VERSE IS

F-Gm-C-B♭-C7-F-F7-B♭-B♭m-F-Dm-B♭-C7-F  EXIT Gm-C7-F (STRUM THE LAST F)

[arlo]

I found that, in fact, square bracket pairs cause the problem. As long as the opening [ can find a ] to close it it will stop transpose. This could be used to prevent band mates from transposing. Even if the [ is at the beginning and the ] is at the end, transpose is prevented. I needed only to erase one of the square brackets to get transpose to work. I’m not sure if this will cause problems later if no opening square brackets [ exist in the lyrics but closing square brackets ] do appear.

I wouldn't recommend adding square brackets for the purpose of preventing transposing. The only supported use of square brackets is for ChordPro-style positioning of text above lyrics. If you're concerned about bandmates editing data, you can change their edit access to None or Added Data. You can also undo any unwanted changes from the Account > History page.