I haven't been able to find an answer in my usual guitar forums, so I joined this one to ask a single question: is there a way to input text on a MIDI device using a computer keyboard?

The reason I ask is this: I use a MIDI controllable effects processor (Boss GT-Pro), but MIDI doesn't send patch names to my controller (Voodoo Labs Ground Control Pro). Once I have my patch programmed in my processor, I have to also program the name in my footswitch controller, and it can take hours if I do a lot of editing. My controller has a MIDI input so that it can receive program changes, so that isn't a problem. I just haven't been able to find a way to connect any sort of text input device, or even my computer, to it.

Is there a way? Yes and no.

You can only send what the device is configured to accept via its defined MIDI interface, and you can only send it if you have software that knows how that defined interface works.

What you probably need to do, if the makers of the pedal don't provide software for you, is to get it to output a System Exclusive dump of the data, then use something like a hex editor to change the names within that data, then re-export it back to the device. This is tricky and could result in corruption if you don't know what you're doing however.