Family Historian User Group

This is not really a problem with GedCom Census itself, but I hope somebody else might have come across this and have some solutions.  I have been using the ScotlandsPeople site for the first time and have a number of census images that I want to link to GC.  Unfortunately there seems to be a problem with the file format.  According to the ScotlandsPeople website the files are .tif but they do not show as image files on my computer and I cannot open them in Photoshop.  When I try to link the image in GedCom Census I receive an error message.  I think it might be something to do with the compression used.  I know I could print them, scan and save as, say, a .jpg but is there a quicker way round this problem?

By the way, I think GedCom Census is absolutely fantastic!!

ID:2315

As you are saying you can print them, I presume you can open them in something?

Can that program save them to a new format?


IrfanView will read and save almost anything so it worth a try to convert the files.

Hi Jane

I printed them directly from ScotlandsPeople.  The only application I have that I can open them in is Microsoft Document Imaging.  It only gives me the option to save as a tif or Microsoft Document Imaging Format and neither option enables me to link the file to GedCom Census.

Try downloading IrfanView, it's free and will probably do the job, I can't check it as with no Scotish Roots I have no documents from ScotlandsPeople.

Gedcom Census certainly can open mdi files and others such as PDF as I've just tried it. When you link these files, Gedcom Census will show a warning where it normally previews the image saying 'Sorry but this type of image format cannot be previewed in Gedcom Census. Click here to open this in the default viewer for this file type'. If you do click it should load whichever program you have on your computer that is set to open that type of file.

I think the tif issue might be to do with compression as you suggest, it can open one type of tif file (uncompressed I think) but not the other but it ought to be able to cope with it in the same way it does with mdi and pdf. I've not had this reported before, what error does Gedcom Census give? Perhaps you would be kind enough to send me a copy of one of these tif files so I can make sure it handles it correctly (an update is coming soon so I could fix it in that). My email address is in the help file of Gedcom Census on the page with the disclaimers, version history, etc.

The problem with the tif file and certainly mdi files is that Family Historian won't be able to show them directly so you would be much better off using Irfanview as Jane suggested to convert to jpg or png.

Nick

Many thanks to Jane and to Nick for helping me out with this one - I can now view the census images!

I use Scotlands People quite a lot as so far most of the rellies are Scottish.  The TIF files I use the Microsoft Office Document Image Viewer and if sharpening is necessary the MS Office Picture Manager.

If, however,you are looking at the OPR's (which went on the site recently) then you get JPG files which open happily in the Windows Picture and Fax Viewer - some of these are very large files - so far the largest was 1552KB for 1 image but it was a double page of marriages and was full of info including the 'future address' of the couple concerned with another 19 couples.  Hope that this helps.

So far I have them saved in files but have not tackled 'linking' to records yet.

Best Wishes, Anne

Sorry all, I didn't quite clue in to the subject properly and I only now realize this - please accept my apologies.

Best wishes, Anne

I've downloaded quite a few census images from ScotlandsPeople and find I can't view them in Gedcom Census; I get the message 'Sorry but this type of image format cannot be previewed in Gedcom Census. Click here to open this in the default viewer for this file type'.

However, I can view these images in FH so it may not be necessary to convert them to jpg or png.  In fact, I've found it better to keep these images as tif files because the scan quality is quite poor to begin with (resolution of 96dpi) and sometimes quality deteriorates more when converting these images.

Regards

Lindsey

IzzardResearcher said:
I've downloaded quite a few census images from ScotlandsPeople and find I can't view them in Gedcom Census; I get the message 'Sorry but this type of image format cannot be previewed in Gedcom Census. Click here to open this in the default viewer for this file type'.

When you click, presumably it does open it in a viewer?

Nick

Nick

Sorry, my reply was really to confirm/add further information about the ScotlandsPeople images rather than saying it was a problem. I don't regard not being able to see these images directly in Gedcom Census as an issue.

In answer to your question, clicking the link opens the images in my default viewer.

Regards

Lindsey

Hi Lindsey

No I realised you weren't reporting an error, but just wanted to check GC was behaving as I hoped it would.

Thanks for the info

Nick