I've used the demo version of FH with a Gedcom 5.5 exported from PAF successfully. But it cannot not be read by the 2.1 version of FH I have just purchased. As soon as I try to 'OPEN' the GED file all I get is 'File is not in a GEDCOM format'. If I go back to the demo version, then Hey Presto, it works.
Any ideas ? Or do I get my money back and stick with PAF ?
Pete
[mad][confused]
ID:93
* FH fails ti accept Gedcom5.5 from PAF
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Jane
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FH fails ti accept Gedcom5.5 from PAF
This has recently been discussed on the mailing list. I believe PAF may be exporting some addition characters to the start of the gedcom file.
Older versions of FH, did not check the headers, try opening your file in a text editor and checking the first few lines start with something like
0 HEAD
1 SOUR FAMILY_HISTORIAN
2 VERS 2.0
2 NAME Family Historian
2 CORP Calico Pie Limited
1 FILE C:WORKFamily Historyexample.GED
Obviously yours should say PAF rather than family historian, but there should be no errant characters.
Send me an e-mail to jane at taubman.org.uk, and attach one of your files, if you would like me to check it.
Older versions of FH, did not check the headers, try opening your file in a text editor and checking the first few lines start with something like
0 HEAD
1 SOUR FAMILY_HISTORIAN
2 VERS 2.0
2 NAME Family Historian
2 CORP Calico Pie Limited
1 FILE C:WORKFamily Historyexample.GED
Obviously yours should say PAF rather than family historian, but there should be no errant characters.
Send me an e-mail to jane at taubman.org.uk, and attach one of your files, if you would like me to check it.
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Guest
FH fails ti accept Gedcom5.5 from PAF
My Mistake....
I tried saving the Gedcom as ansi instead of the default UTF-8 in PAF and FH now reads it in OK.
Thanks for your reply anyway...
Pete[smile]
I tried saving the Gedcom as ansi instead of the default UTF-8 in PAF and FH now reads it in OK.
Thanks for your reply anyway...
Pete[smile]
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SimonOrde
- Program Designer
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- Family Historian: V7
- Location: Calico Pie
FH fails ti accept Gedcom5.5 from PAF
Pete
thanks for drawing my attention to this one. The problem is caused by the fact that files in UTF-8 format are basically normal text files except that they start with 3 special characters. If you had a program that would let you delete the first 3 chars from the UTF-8 files you would find that F.H. loads them OK. The reason that it doesn't load them now is because these 3 characters effectively prevent F.H. from detecting the file header. In the past, it would have accepted a GEDCOM file as such even if it had no header. The current version will object if it finds no header and assume that the file is not GEDCOM (a header is mandatory for all GEDCOM files).
The solution is for F.H. to support UTF-8. I've added it to the Wish List. For now, your solution (export as ANSI) is fine.
Just for interest, you will probably find that old versions of Notepad (e.g. versions from Windows 98 etc) display the special characters, but new ones (eg. Windows XP's Notepad) know about the UTF-8 format, and don't.
P.S. If you can load a UTF-8 file into a simple text editor such as Notepad (not WordPad though), even if you can't delete the special characters, simply putting a blank line in front of the the header (the '0 HEAD' line) should also ensure that the header is detected, so that the file will load in F.H.
thanks for drawing my attention to this one. The problem is caused by the fact that files in UTF-8 format are basically normal text files except that they start with 3 special characters. If you had a program that would let you delete the first 3 chars from the UTF-8 files you would find that F.H. loads them OK. The reason that it doesn't load them now is because these 3 characters effectively prevent F.H. from detecting the file header. In the past, it would have accepted a GEDCOM file as such even if it had no header. The current version will object if it finds no header and assume that the file is not GEDCOM (a header is mandatory for all GEDCOM files).
The solution is for F.H. to support UTF-8. I've added it to the Wish List. For now, your solution (export as ANSI) is fine.
Just for interest, you will probably find that old versions of Notepad (e.g. versions from Windows 98 etc) display the special characters, but new ones (eg. Windows XP's Notepad) know about the UTF-8 format, and don't.
P.S. If you can load a UTF-8 file into a simple text editor such as Notepad (not WordPad though), even if you can't delete the special characters, simply putting a blank line in front of the the header (the '0 HEAD' line) should also ensure that the header is detected, so that the file will load in F.H.