Best format for scanned documents?

rjwestmore · Post by **rjwestmore** » 01 Jun 2010 19:44

What is the recommended format for scanned documents e.g. GRO Certificates.
As a new user to Family Historian I am keen to start out with best practice.

I initially assumed that PDF would be the preferred format, but I see that whilst it can be used, Family Historian 4 does not regard that as a standard format.
I scanned a certificate into a jpeg file and a pdf file, the jpeg file is larger, the on screen quality appears to be the same.

I also wonder what the recommended dpi for scanning documents.

All helpful advice appreciated.

ID:4599

davidm_uk · Post by **davidm_uk** » 01 Jun 2010 20:00

I normally scan things like certificates in at 150dpi or even 300dpi, and a colour rather tha B&W as I find that gives a clearer image if I want to really zoom in on some text to decipher it. Also I use JPG format which is a more widely accepted format than many others.

With the size of modern hard disks I don't think that the larger size of JPG is a problem, and I'd rather not risk losing definition and then later wish I hadn't.

gerrynuk · Post by **gerrynuk** » 01 Jun 2010 20:10

I use jpegs as the standard and extract jpeg images from pdfs although for long court transcripts etc - of which I have quite a few from the Old Bailey site - this is a tedious process. (I think Jane mentioned some time ago that there was an on-line facility to do this but I haven't used it yet.)

When I scan I use the highest available resolution even though it produces very large files - as I don't embed these into the gedcom file it doesn't matter. It does slow down display of images but the results are worth it.

As a matter of interest I use Picasa to organise all my images (not just family history) as it is free, very flexible, easy to use, is constantly being improved and has a good range of editing tools, including crop and (very important) straighten. Some of the images I download from on-line family history related web sites (no names, no pack-drill!) have very large margins, often bigger than the actual image and the images are frequently at odd angles, especially census images. Picasa deals with these very quickly and simply. For more complex editing task and image conversion I use Paint, Irfanview and GIMP (the latter very rarely). Paint, surprisingly, is able to convert images between different formats with little fuss. Just load the image and 'save as...' what ever format you want. Irfanview is a little more sophisticated if additional facilities are required.

Hope that is useful. Good luck.

Gerry

rjwestmore · Post by **rjwestmore** » 05 Jun 2010 21:37

Thank you for your advice.
One further question, the Family Historian documentation seems to stronly recommend that images of documents are copied into the program for ease of portability. If Family Historian uses an absolute directory address (rather than a relative one) this seems sensible to me.
Do you agree, are there any issues to this approach, or work arounds for portability if you keep them seprately.

Thank you for your help.

YouTube · Post by **Jane** » 06 Jun 2010 10:28

With V4 the Project option 'pulls' everything in to a folder structure for you. On V3 then most people find it useful to keep everything in a structured manner.

davidm_uk · Post by **davidm_uk** » 07 Jun 2010 10:48

Just to clarify.

FH allows you to insert multimedia (eg scanned images) into your file, but this embeds the image into the GED file where FH keeps all your data. This is not recommended as it can result in huge GED files.

FH also allows you to link to multimedia files (or in fact any type of file) that, in theory, can be anywhere on your PC. However in v4 if you use the project option then FH creates a folder for you called media where it expects to find these files.

I have created a folder structure underneath this media folder so that I can subdivide all the various files eg:

mediacensussmith
mediacensusbrown
mediacertificates and indexesbirth certificates
mediacertificates and indexesbirth indexes
mediadocumentswills
mediaphotos

etc etc.

You can of course have any folder structure, or none at all, and you can change it later by using the Work With External File Links function in FH, but it's best to give some though on how you want to structure your files first before you get mountains of them!

Hope this helps.

rjwestmore · Post by **rjwestmore** » 08 Jun 2010 20:24

Thank you that is all helpful information.

A futher question is: how easy, or not, is it to transfer the database and associated images to someone else if they are not inserted into the Family Historian GEDCOM database.

Thank you.

YouTube · Post by **Jane** » 09 Jun 2010 07:55

Just send the entire project folder zipped up

Post by **tatewise** » 20 Jun 2010 20:35

Don't forget that if you send the zipped up Project folder to somebody else they will need Family Historian to be able to make best use of the information.
If they do not have a fully licensed version, then they can download and install the free Family Historian Read-only Demo version. The only drawback is that it is based on FH Version 3 (not Version 4), but it still opens Version 4 Project folders quite happily.

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