Jim Byram

Open the Message Manager (Help / Message Manager). Tick the 'Display previous messages' checkbox. Read the topic titled 'Give the Gift of TMG for HALF OFF!'.

The FTM 'Caption' text goes to the TMG 'Topic' field which is limited to 30 characters in length. The FTM 'Category' and 'Description' fields go to the TMG 'Caption' field with the form 'category; description'. The TMG 'Topic' field is intended as a description of the image to distinguish it in the Exhibit Log and, for that reason, is short. The TMG 'Caption' field contains the text output as the image caption in narrative reports and the text can be as long as you wish. It's just an issue of the two programs each having different specifications and uses for the data fields and one not quite fitting the other. There are no plans to change the length of the TMG 'Topic' field.

Leading zeros are stripped from each date part in report output if the option to retain leading leading zeros is not selected. However, there is a limitation... only one leading zero is stripped from each date part. I tested several date formats but not all. You didn't say which format you are using. So... 01-01-0975 would be output as 1-1-975. However, 01-01-0001 would be output as 1-1-001. Not an issue that I recall coming up but I'd guess that the failure to strip all leading zeros from a year is a bug.

It did for me and I've done that twice. If you never see the messagebox, the optimize hasn't completed. A considerable chunk was removed by the first optimize... mostly reductions in the index files, of course. From experience, that's a bad practice. Custom tags export by default as 1 EVEN 2 TYPE tags and that is how they should be exported. Delete the _UID tag type.

I don't know of any way around this since the link is the path to a file with a specific name. I would work through your exhibits one-by-one while updating the files with Windows Explorer. Change a filename and then update that exhibit. You might be able to use TMG Utility to make the filename corrections in the I-table while changing the files. Not sure. If so, again, I'd do it on a file-by-file basis.

Stobie.ged uses both the NAME structure and the NPFX/GIVN/SURN/NSFX structure so that option might pick up some name parts that would otherwise be skipped. The option likely adds to the total import time but you were correct to select it. You really need to assign all unasigned and all Event-Misc tags to custom tag types. Not assigning the Event-Misc tags will result in many different data types clumped under one tag type after import. The tag type list has 'Christning'. It was probably spelled like that at some point to keep it short. So I imported. Then I optimized (important to do this first). (File / Maintenance / Optimize) Then I ran VFI. (File / Maintenance / Validate File Integrity) Then I optimized again. What took longer than running the import was running VFI on the import which found a grand total of 58 table issues to clean up. So the import of this massive GEDCOM file left little residue. To complete the import, all of the custom tag types that were created need to be edited to fix the sentences. For example... Change: [P] Cremation to: [P] cremated etc. And then the Master Place List will need some alignment of places. And the sources and repositories (if they exist) will need editing. When that's done, you're in fairly decent shape.

Mike, Not really. You could do this. Add a dummy tag to a person. Add a place, save the tag. Reopen the tag, edit to add the next place and save the tag. Continue the cycle until all places are added to the Master Place List. That should be fairly quick. Now you can add the people, select the existing places, edit as necessary in Add Person or the Tag Entry screen. Do not run optimize until all people using the places are entered or optimize will remove all unlinked places. Jim

That's correct. Using the direct FTM import with v6.12, neither the citation images nor source images are imported. I would advise using a GEDCOM file rather than direct import to move your data to TMG. First, all of your data should be transferred by using GEDCOM. I have no idea what FTM will do with the images. If it provides links to external files, those should be imported. Second, there is an unpredictable bug with citation import using the direct import with v6.12 and that's reason to use GEDCOM instead. More... FTM apparently has no way to export the images via GEDCOM so that route is out for the citation and source images. I wrote a bug submission for the citation and source image import issue. Thanks for pointing that out. The v6.12 citation import issue should be fixed in v7.

The places in the Master Place List must be realigned one at a time.This is just one of those post-import cleanup jobs that needs to be undertaken. With an FTM import, you will also have to move data from a place field to the memo field for many 'places'. Click the [Events] button and open and edit each event linked to the 'place'.

You have to be real careful about selecting options that don't apply to the GEDCOM. x convert widowed SOURce tags x combine identical sources x read NPFX/GIVN/SURN/NSFX names x cite GEDCOM file for all data On Step 7, you also need to create custom TMG tag types or assign to existing tag types all of the unassigned and event-misc tags. This is a very important step that saves considerable post-GEDCOM import cleanup. There are over two dozen such GEDCOM tags in this import. Running VFI on the imported project took all day and overnight. Don't know how long it took. It had been running 17 hours when I went to bed and was completed when I got up.

That's a reflection of the image used. Each image will have an initial size in Word reflecting the resolution of the image. If you have multiple images, each with a different resolution, that will be reflected in how the image initially appears in Word and each image will differ. There are only two ways to deal with that. Either... 1) Resize and standardize all of your images for Word output. Make each image a standard resolution and dpi value that will work in Word. That standard size might be one size for person images, a different one for group images, and another for documents. You get the idea. or 2) Resize each image in Word after you update the links. This is the least desirable alternative since you must do it each time that you create a Word document with images.

I'm sure that the import speed could be shortened considerably by optimizing the import code. The problem is that the effort would take a very long time to do (think on the order of a week or more) and since files of this nature are so rare, it's difficult to justify the developer time required to do this. I still haven't gotten to the import. I'll set it up on another machine this morning and let it run until it's done. %%%%%%%%%% The import of stobie.ged on my notebook under TMG7 took about 5.25 hours. The import under TMG v6.12 on a slower machine took between 12.75 and 13.75 hours. The disk space used by the indexed v6.12 project is about 2.05 Gb and the backup file size is about 95 Mb. While you can work with the project even with the Project Explorer linked to the other windows, a project of this size is really too sluggish to be practical. Doing some cleanup and looking at the project further.

In Word 2007 or later... 1. click the button (upper left round button) 2. select 'Prepare' 3. select 'Edit Links to Files' to open the Links screen 4. hold down and click on the last item on the list (to highlight all records) 5. check the box to 'Save picture in document' 6. click on . Note that, in Word 2007, the presence of the 'Edit Links to Files' option is context sensitive. If the document has no links, you will not see that option. If the document has links, the option will automagically appear under the 'Prepare' selection.

There is only one program. When it's running as the 'trial' version, it is equivalent to the Gold edition. If you purchase the Gold edition (which is what you really want to do), the registration code that you receive will make the unlocked program the Gold edition.

You are running the actual program. The program will run in 'trial' mode with all features for 30 days. When you buy the program, you've already got it installed and you unlock it by entering the registration information that you will receive. This a quote of the policy: "Those who purchased TMG v6 after 17 Aug 2007 (or 90 days before release of TMG v7, whichever is earlier) will get a free update to TMG v7."

Downloaded the GEDCOM and will take a look.

300,000 is a lot of people. Can you send me the GEDCOM for testing? If a ZIP archive of the GEDCOM is too large for email, I'll tell you how to upload it to a Wholly Genes server. Please contact me directly. Click below for my email: Jim Byram

Because of other reasons, I would import your FTM data by way of a GEDCOM file. Export your FTM data to GEDCOM and import the GEDCOM file into TMG. btw... Can you send me your FTM database for testing? I'll look at the error issue. If a ZIP archive of the FTW file is too large for email, I'll tell you how to upload it to a Wholly Genes server. Please contact me directly. Click below for my email: Jim Byram

The cake will come out of the oven when it is baked.

The current release version of VFP9 is being used. SP2 will be used when released but the development and release of TMG v7 does not depend on VFP9 SP2. I'm not aware of any remaining issues of WinVista-compatibility in the development of TMG v7 that have anything to do with VFP9. (Just to note... VFP9 SP2 was released on 16 Oct 2007.)

It's a refresh issue. Exiting after the edit and restarting the program will also 'fix' it. I'm having a problem replicating this in the current beta. Mostly, the MPL edit takes and will immediately show in the LofPlaces report.

The only alternative at the moment is via GEDCOM.

I'm not aware of any plans along those lines for v7 that have been discussed in public.

I've never seen anything like that. I would email support and it's likely that they will ask to see your project.

That is exactly how the Exhibit Log works now. Any document with a Windows-file association can be added to the Exhibit Log and will be displayed by the appropriate external application. In the Exhibit Log, you right-click and select Insert new text / External file. On the Insert new exhibit screen, you change the filetype from 'All Texts (*.rtf, *.txt)' to 'All files (*.*)' and browse to the file (a PDF file for example) and select the file and then click [Open] and the file will be linked and show in the Exhibit Log. The exhibit will show in the Exhibit Log and can be viewed from the Exhibit Log. The viewing process will open the PDF document in Adobe Acrobat Reader. The contents of the PDF file will not be output in TMG reports (since the contents are not text). In v7, this process will be clarified and will be more obvious and easier.