It's been awhile, but in previous bands, for cover tunes, each of us would learn our parts outside of practice. Someone would provide a recording of each song. Then we would come together, rehearse and work out the details. It seemed to work for all of us at the time.

Lately, I have been charting out the songs in my own shorthand style with the song format...Intro Verse, Chorus, Bridge, etc. with all the chord changes.
I currently use Word for that, but i know there are some good transcription software programs out there that are better.

I don't think Word docs are offensive at all. Much better than just trying to memorize it all or write it out by hand (like the old days!). It's simple and provides the necessary information.