The program translates tunes written in the ABC format to PostScript, which can then be viewed using Ghostview et al. or printed on a PostScript printer or through Ghostscript. It supports various semi-standard extensions to the ABC standard, such as multiple voices and staves.

Jean-François Moine once wrote abcm2ps as a successor of abc2ps by Michael Methfessel. He is working on an new version named abc2svg.