What a .gp5 file is
Guitar Pro 5 saved songs as .gp5 files, and before it Guitar Pro 4 and 3 used .gp4 and .gp3. They're binary files, so a text editor shows nothing useful, and newer programs don't always open them. A lot of the tabs shared online since the mid-2000s are in these formats.
How to open a .gp5 file in guitarnotation
- Choose File › Open, or drag the file onto the window. File › Import works too.
- The song opens with every guitar and bass track, its tuning and capo, and the techniques: bends, slides, hammer-ons and pull-offs, harmonics, vibrato, palm mutes, grace notes and dynamics.
- Press play. Slow it down, loop the bar you're working on, and watch the notes on the fretboard.
The same steps open .gp4 and .gp3 files, .gpx files from Guitar Pro 6 and .gp files from Guitar Pro 7 and 8.
What doesn't come across
guitarnotation has one voice per track and no drum tracks, so it leaves out drum tracks and any second voice on a staff, and it tells you what it skipped when the file opens. Everything else in a typical guitar tab comes through.
Convert a .gp5 file
Once it's open, File › Export saves it as:
- PDF, to print, on A4 or US Letter;
- .gp, to open in Guitar Pro 7 or 8;
- MusicXML, for MuseScore, Finale, Sibelius or Dorico, with the strings and frets kept;
- MIDI or WAV, to play along with in other software;
- plain-text tab, to paste into a forum or an email.
To convert files in a script, the app also works from the command line without opening a window: guitarnotation --export song.gp5 song.pdf. The output's extension picks the format.
If a file won't open
A file that ends early is usually damaged, and guitarnotation says so. If a .gp5 file opens in Guitar Pro but not in guitarnotation, or looks wrong, email it to info@guitarnotation.com and we'll look at it.
More on the formats it reads: MusicXML and MIDI. Coming from Guitar Pro? See the Guitar Pro alternative page.