# How to format an incipit

**URL:** <https://gregobase.discourse.group/t/how-to-format-an-incipit/15>\
**Category:** Community Standards\
**Created:** [October 28, 2026, 9:18pm UTC](https://gregobase.discourse.group/t/how-to-format-an-incipit/15 "2026-10-28T21:18:55Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![xmarteo](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/gregobase.discourse.group/xmarteo/32/10_2.png) [@xmarteo](https://gregobase.discourse.group/u/xmarteo)\
**Post date:** [October 28, 2026, 9:18pm UTC](https://gregobase.discourse.group/t/how-to-format-an-incipit/15/1 "2026-10-28T21:18:55Z")

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When filling in the incipit field,

- should we remove punctuation?
- should we remove accents?
- should we replace æ and œ with ae and oe?

I answer yes to all three, because it makes it so that two scores for the same chant will have the same incipit (plus or minus entire words, which ought to be standardized manually)

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**Author:** ![MRoth1910](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/gregobase.discourse.group/mroth1910/32/14_2.png) [@MRoth1910](https://gregobase.discourse.group/u/MRoth1910)\
**Post date:** [October 31, 2026, 6:32pm UTC](https://gregobase.discourse.group/t/how-to-format-an-incipit/15/2 "2026-10-31T18:32:22Z")

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yes; users can’t guess and should be able to find an exact match irrespective of what is done in the gabc (based on the source).

Also, although the second part has to be done manually, it’s annoying when two chants from different sources have the same incipit but the title doesn’t reproduce this.