GEDCOM export of multimedia links

[Doug Gordon 0]

When exporting links to pictures in a GEDCOM file (under the OBJE tag), the keyword FORM is supposed to specify the format of the picture. I was surprised in my file exported from V6.07 that some of these lines were exported as "n FORM JPEG" (which is correct) while others were exported as "n FORM JPG" (which is technically not correct according to my copy of the spec).

 

What is strange about this is that all of my external exhibits are JPEG files and all of them have a file extension of ".jpg". So it is odd that some are exported differently.

 

This will probably not cause any problems for anyone, but it did take me a while to figure out why I was not picking up all the pictures when processing my GEDCOM file with my own software.

[Jim Byram 0]

When exporting links to pictures in a GEDCOM file (under the OBJE tag), the keyword FORM is supposed to specify the format of the picture. I was surprised in my file exported from V6.07 that some of these lines were exported as "n FORM JPEG" (which is correct) while others were exported as "n FORM JPG" (which is technically not correct according to my copy of the spec).

I don't see that. All in my files are exported as FORM JPEG. Can you see a pattern? I asked the programmer to check the code and see if he can come up with a reason for the variability.

 

Note that .TIF files are being exported as FORM TIF rather than FORM TIFF. Both JPEG and TIFF are antiquated forms. You don't see many files saved as .JPEG and .TIFF these days. Export has been extended beyond the specs and should now support all external filetypes supported by the Exhibit Log. The FORM is taken from the filetype. This would make JPEG (as opposed to JPG) an exception.

[Doug Gordon 0]

I don't see that. All in my files are exported as FORM JPEG. Can you see a pattern? I asked the programmer to check the code and see if he can come up with a reason for the variability.

 

Note that .TIF files are being exported as FORM TIF rather than FORM TIFF. Both JPEG and TIFF are antiquated forms. You don't see many files saved as .JPEG and .TIFF these days. Export has been extended beyond the specs and should now support all external filetypes supported by the Exhibit Log. The FORM is taken from the filetype. This would make JPEG (as opposed to JPG) an exception.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I think that there might be some confusion between the graphic format specified in the FORM tag and the file extension that is used. JPEG and TIFF are names of graphic formats -- not necessarily the file extension of files in that format. JPEG files usually have the extension ".jpg" or ".jpeg". But in either case, I think the tag should be "FORM JPEG". After all, the acronym JPEG does actually stand for something (Joint Photography Experts Group). So while you might be correct that ".jpeg" as a file extension is more rare these days, the JPEG format itself is not.

 

Similarly, TIFF stands for "Tagged Image File Format", and files in that format are usually either ".tif" or ".tiff".

 

But anyway, in my GEDCOM file there does not seem to be a pattern between the appearance of FORM JPG and FORM JPEG, and all of my files have the ".jpg" extension.

[Jim Byram 0]

Doug,

 

With the next update, hopefully, you should find that the output is consistently FORM JPEG. If that's not the case, please let me know.

 

Jim