Questions and answers

In this browser, on this device, in the browser's own IndexedDB storage. There is no server and no account, so nothing you type is uploaded. Clearing this site's data deletes everything, so export a backup file from the planning desk and keep it somewhere safe.

Because they belong to their publishers. Hymn words, most modern tunes and harmonies, hymnal indexes, Scripture translations and lectionary tables are under copyright or licence. Hymnwise stores the numbers, titles, first lines, tunes and dates you enter, and you type or import readings and orders of service under your own parish's permissions.

86 hymns whose words and tunes were both first published in or before 1928, each checked against its Hymnary.org text and tune pages. It lists titles, first lines, tunes and meters with our own season tags, never the words. Its numbers are its own, so a parish with a printed hymnal enters that hymnal's numbers.

From your own services. Every service you plan, or import from a spreadsheet of past services, becomes history: the last-sung date, how many times in the past year and in all, and the next date it is planned are worked out again each time you look, so moving a service or swapping a hymn changes every answer at once.

A hymn sung again within the repeat window (8 weeks unless you change it) is flagged, and so is a tune heard again within the tune window (4 weeks) under another text. A hymn tagged only for other seasons is flagged too, such as a Christmas hymn in Lent. They are warnings, not rules: you decide.

Easter comes from the Gregorian computus, tested against the dates the US Naval Observatory publishes. Advent, Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday, Ascension, Pentecost and Trinity Sunday follow from it. Sundays are named the prayer book way with Propers after Pentecost, counted after Pentecost, or in Roman Ordinary Time, as your settings say.

No. The lectionary table may be reproduced by congregations for their own worship, but a tool like this needs written permission to carry it. Type or paste each Sunday's readings, or import them from a spreadsheet your parish keeps. The lectionary year (A, B or C) and the proper number are worked out for you.

Yes. Save it as CSV and match its columns: a hymnal index (number, title, first line, tune, meter, seasons), a sung history (date and number), or readings (date and readings). Rows already here are counted and left alone, so importing the same file twice changes nothing.

Yes. Everything here is free: every hymnal and every year, the quarterly music list, the annual report, the bulletin booklet, spreadsheet import and export, and locked backups. There is no account and nothing to buy.

Hymnwise is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to any church, denomination, diocese, hymnal publisher, lectionary body or licensing service, including the Consultation on Common Texts, Augsburg Fortress, Church Publishing, GIA, OCP, Hope Publishing, Hymnary.org, OneLicense and CCLI.