* extract saved images from Family Tree Maker?

[jmurphy]

In the bad old days before I started using Family Historian, I played around a bit with Family Tree Maker. It has a feature which lets you automatically fetch images of censuses and other records from Ancestry, and stores them as part of your file.

I thought this was a bad idea - suppose you stop using FTM but want to keep your images -- how would you get them back out?

You can probably guess what happened next. I convinced an online pal to give up FTM and switch to FH. She had been saving her images inside the FTM file. Now she needs to get them back out, if possible, and I never learned how. I have long since cleared off FTM from my hard drive because I wanted more space. So I can't open up my copy of FTM to see what I can find out there and to experiment unless I install it again (ick, pthooey).

I know that Jane has an excellent utility for cleaning up files produced by FTM, but IIRC that is for GEDCOM files.

I've been looking about to see if anyone has a utility to get the images out of a FTW file but so far I haven't had much luck.

Any suggestions?

Jan

ID:3461

[jmurphy]

P.S. -- she has Family Tree Maker 16, which is the version after my old version. In FTM 2008 one of the FAQs about images says:

6. Click the Merge button in the Search result detail box to add the selected images to the selected individual in your Family Tree Maker file. Note that these images will not increase the size of your Family Tree Maker file because they are actually added to a separate Family Tree Maker folder and linked to the appropriate location within your file.

However, if I remember correctly, in my version (and perhaps hers) the images are actually embedded in the file somehow.

Jan

[Jane]

I think I would get her to start by looking through My Documents for the Census images, just in case it's put them on the disk in 'clear', I have not used FTW for years (I moved to FH in V2 and my FTW was old then).

Also get her to have a go at exporting her data and see what options there are and if it can export the images as well?

Might be worth getting the exact version she has in case some one here has the same version and can help out.

[jmurphy]

I have FTM 2006, and she has FTM 16 (the version after mine).

I've just found this blog dedicated to FTM users -- here's the link in case it is helpful for other people transitioning away from FTM to FH:

http://ftmuser.blogspot.com/

Edited to add:

Via this blog I found the help system for the older versions of FTM:

http://pastftm.custhelp.com/

Searching here I found the Question:

Can I copy my Scrapbook pictures into another program?

Once you have put a picture into your scrapbook, it is part of your Family Tree Maker file and cannot be accessed separately.

For this reason, we recommend that you insert pictures from file, instead of scanning them directly into your scrapbook.

To get existing pictures from your scrapbook into another program, copy and paste them individually from the scrapbook to a folder on your hard drive. From there, you can insert them from file into the other program.

The steps below illustrate the process. These steps use Microsoft Paint and the My Pictures folder as examples, but you could use any graphics editing program and any folder on your hard drive instead if you choose.

1. Right-click on the scrapbook picture you would like to copy. Choose Copy Picture/Object.
2. Open a graphics editing program, such as Paint (Start/Programs/Accessories/Paint).
3. Paste the picture into the graphics editing program. (In Paint, click on the Edit menu, and choose Paste.)
4. Save the picture to your My Pictures folder.
(In Paint, choose File, and then Save As. Choose a graphics format such as .jpeg or .gif, give the file a name, and choose your My Pictures folder as the location. Click Save.)

Looks like she may have to do it the brute-force way. I'll ask her and see.

Jan