Hi Laura,

and thank you for your reply. That was not the problem though, and just now I discovered the same problem when I tried to add the image to Legacy6.

So I think image must have been damaged somehow even if it is not obvious since I could open it in several image viewers without a problem.

I then opened it in Paint Shop Pro, and re-saved it back to the same file as I opened, and guess what, now both Legacy and RootsMagic can see it.... Now I just have to go through all photos and resave them to get them back to normal... I think it may have to do with the fact that they come from a backup copy from another genealogy program. Somewhere along the way they got damaged.

Cecilia

Hi,

I tried to add an image to the multimedia section. RootsMagic lets me add the image, but it does not show up among the thumbnails on the multimedia tab after being added. The box where it is supposed to be is blank - it does not show the "Can't find" thumbnail either. The caption is there.

When I go to the "select image" dialog, it says "Preview not available". But if I choose to show thumbnails of the images available in the folder, the photo is there.... see image below:

http://www.ceciliasplace.se/image2.jpg

I opened the image in Microsoft PhotoEditor, the Image and Fax viewer, XnView, Faststone and Paint Shop Pro without a problem. It is a normal - I assume - jpg image. There are other images in other folders with the same problem.

Cecilia

Hmmm...... I think just about all pedigree views that I have seen, have the latest/youngest generations to the left. I just checked Legacy 6, Family Tree Legends and Family Tree Maker 2006. They have the latest generations to the left, and ancestors to the right. Also, most reports & charts that I have seen, look similar - with ancestors to the right. My guess is that since most (?) languages read from left to right, that is why the pedigree tree is designed that way. Just like when you are reading from a book, you start from the left.

I think the option to reverse the pedigree is interesting in reports, especially if you use your own background image in charts. I seldom use it, so it is not a priority to me. However, FT Legends has an option "reverse Left-right" in the Ancestor chart, and that made it possible for me to add an old map where the most interesting area was in the right part of the image. Having all the ancestors hiding that part would not be good, and I certainly could not mirrow the map.

/Cecilia
--------------
LATER: Just discovered that RM does allow right-left orientation in wall charts - just have not used it before. I used Legends before I had discovered RM.

I have family intervjues that cannot be added to the publisher, because the text page has a limit as Alfred and others have noticed in the past. I think you should be able to add more than about 4 pages of text to the publisher somehow.. I just do not want to cut the intervju in half, or add another text page because then I get two "chapters" in the table of contents when there should be just one.

Cecilia

Hi Alfred, yes I crop photos too, but I still want to add the originals since they are often photos from special occasions. I scan my BEST family photos (certainly not all of them), in very high resolution. For a 19th century small portrait, that means 2400 dpi, and will give me a 50 MB file. I save it in TIF, but then I make a much smaller extra copy, in JPG, let's say about 1200-1500 pixels high. That still allows me to zoom in faces. My rule here is to "save the eyes - or at least faces" - the quality has to be good enough to see people's eyes or faces, when I zoom in. But this is just my opinion. I do like being able to see people's faces, and being able to see their eyes make them so much more alive. So that's why I have problems with a full CD...

How much quality you lose in a jpg file depends on how much compression you use. I use Paint Shop Pro a lot, and it has a "jpg optimizer" that shows a preview of my photo before I save it, and how it changes when I compress it. A bmp-file, original size 900 kb, is as a jpg file 185 kb with 5% compression, but only 45 kb with 35% compression. But unfortunately, with 35% compression, the quality is ruined forever. I think many scanners, perhaps all, have "options" when you save your photo to a jpg file, that allow you to decide how much compression you want. I think about 10% is normal, and does not remove too much quality.

I guess that if you use very low compression, you could work on & save a jpg file many times without noticing any loss in quality, but with a high compression, you can't save it even once.

Really high quality/resolution, is not really needed for the computer screen, but you do need it if you intend to remove scratches etc, or print the photo in a really good quality, especially if you want a bigger copy than the original. You lose some quality just in the printing process, therefore you need extra quality to get a good result. ... I always recommend scanning the very best photos in very high quality - you may not want to remove scratches, but some day your g-g-g-grandchildren may want to! Anyhow, these are my observations.. and at least in parts connected to this "full CD" topic. Thanks for you help Alfred! /Cecilia

Hi Alfred, I'm sorry that you misunderstood my instructions, I don't blame you. It is not easy to explain every single detail so that no one misunderstands. Open the CD family file from inside Rootsmagic, but close down the CD Viewer program first, in case you have it opened.

I have a family photo with 48 people in it. For about 2/3 of the people in it, this photo is the only photo that I have on them. So of course, I added that photo to everyone's multimedia section... I get 48 copies of the same photo on the CD...... I love Rootsmagic, but this is ridiculous.

And yes, no file names can be named (2) etc - unless you remove that too, in the actual file name in Explorer.

/Cecilia

Hm.... when I go to the folder where the CD files are stored, there is only one file that I can open from inside Rootsmagic, and that's the .rmg file. I have only made one CD this way, but I think it worked just fine for the person I sent it too. But I guess there could be bugs we did not discover.

Btw, when I opened the CD family file through Rootsmagic (the main program), the program did not see one single image despite the fact that the paths were correct. Every single image said "Can't find... However, if you open the CD family file through the program Rmreader , which you will find in the CDProg folder, every image works as it should. RmReader is used for the CD. You do need the main program Rootsmagic in order to use the Search and replace option. That option is not included in RmReader (of course).

/Cecilia

Hi all,

I had the same problem with a full CD because files got duplicated and I did something like this... complicated but it worked. I can't try now exactly how I did it since my CD-burner is not working, but hopefully my explanation is correct.

I created the shareable CD but did not burn the CD. Instead I went to the folder where Rootsmagic stores the files for the CD:

:\Documents and Settings\User\Application Data\RootsMagic\CDProg\

and in the folders "pictures" I found the same file in many copies for instance:
Census 1900 - August Kutter.jpg
Census 1900 - August Kutter(2).jpg
Census 1900 - August Kutter(3).jpg.
etc

In the original family file, there is only 1 file, but on the CD, there is one copy of that file for each time I have added the file to the family tree.

So I opened (in Rootsmagic) the family tree file that was created for the CD:

C:\Documents and Settings\User\Application Data\RootsMagic\CDProg\Family Tree.rmg

Then I went to Search - Search and Replace:

Search in "multimedia filenames"
Search for: (2)
Replace with: [empty]

In other words, I changed the PATH from "Census 1900 - August Kutter(2).jpg" to Census 1900 - August Kutter.jpg

After that I could remove the actual files with the name Census 1900 - August Kutter(2).jpg. And so on... When I had finished, I only had one file, and no identical copies, and all paths in the family tree, took me to the original file and not to any of the copies.

And then of course, I could burn my CD. Well, it worked, but I would certainly appreciate if the program understood that it is the SAME file.

/Cecilia
Ps. The folder :\Documents and Settings\User\Application Data\RootsMagic\CDProg\Family Tree.rmg may be hidden, in that case you need to change your file settings so that you can view hidden folders.