Dear Listers and Bruce, For years the question of which is the best genealogy software has arisen. For years someone has always responded that several have strong points and that they in fact use GEDCOM to transfer data between them to take advantage of special reporting features among them. I have stuck with FOW for years (now using 9.02); the biggest reason being the ease of use and speed. I decided to try to transfer my base to another program, namely PAF, to see if some of the reports may be more appealing. Without getting into specifics, I did find several report features that I liked, but obviously encountered some loses (and, strangely, some gains) in the transfer. Study showed that with some minor changes to the standards that I use when I enter the data in FOW, most of the problems can be worked around. One however befuddled me for days. Long text fields, i.e. Notes, Places, Source Titles, etc., would get altered no matter whether I used "Preserve Word Wrap" on the GEDCOM export from FO or not. Checking "Preserve Word Wrap" results in the use of the CONC continuation sub-tag and the resulting lose of spacing between words exactly as described in the following paragraph. (This paragraph is an exact extract from the GEDCOM 5.5 Standard now published on the LDS web site.) CONC {CONCATENATION}: = An indicator that additional data belongs to the superior value. The information from the CONC value is to be connected to the value of the superior preceding line without a space and without a carriage return and/or new line character. Values that are split for a CONC tag must always be split at a non-space. If the value is split on a space the space will be lost when concatenation takes place. This is because of the treatment that spaces get as a GEDCOM delimiter, many GEDCOM values are trimmed of trailing spaces and some systems look for the first non-space starting after the tag to determine the beginning of the value. (Note that un-checking "PWW" results in the use of the CONT continuation sub-tag and the importing of the data to PAF as unwrapped lines about 70 characters long. This is in accordance with the standard for that tag.) My question is two-fold: 1) How are all of you who do this sort of thing coping with this sort of issue? 2) What, Bruce, would it take to get it to work right? Thanks for your attention, Don docooker@utah-inter.net

Excellent point, Don. One that has troubled me when swapping a GEDCOM between two programs for the desired features you mention. How do I handle it? I frequently use a spell checker in the final electronic media: Wor/Win. I also wish the tools provided with formatting notes were a little more W/W or W/P compatible. --Derick At 04:29 PM 5/21/01, Don Cook wrote: >Dear Listers and Bruce, > >For years the question of which is the best genealogy software has arisen. >For years someone has always responded that several have strong points and >that they in fact use GEDCOM to transfer data between them to take advantage >of special reporting features among them. > >I have stuck with FOW for years (now using 9.02); the biggest reason being >the ease of use and speed. I decided to try to transfer my base to another >program, namely PAF, to see if some of the reports may be more appealing. >Without getting into specifics, I did find several report features that I >liked, but obviously encountered some loses (and, strangely, some gains) in >the transfer. > >Study showed that with some minor changes to the standards that I use when I >enter the data in FOW, most of the problems can be worked around. One >however befuddled me for days. Long text fields, i.e. Notes, Places, Source >Titles, etc., would get altered no matter whether I used "Preserve Word >Wrap" on the GEDCOM export from FO or not. > >Checking "Preserve Word Wrap" results in the use of the CONC continuation >sub-tag and the resulting lose of spacing between words exactly as described >in the following paragraph. (This paragraph is an exact extract from the >GEDCOM 5.5 Standard now published on the LDS web site.) > >CONC {CONCATENATION}: = >An indicator that additional data belongs to the superior value. The >information from the CONC value is to be connected to the value of the >superior preceding line without a space and without a carriage return and/or >new line character. Values that are split for a CONC tag must always be >split at a non-space. If the value is split on a space the space will be >lost when concatenation takes place. This is because of the treatment that >spaces get as a GEDCOM delimiter, many GEDCOM values are trimmed of trailing >spaces and some systems look for the first non-space starting after the tag >to determine the beginning of the value. > >(Note that un-checking "PWW" results in the use of the CONT continuation >sub-tag and the importing of the data to PAF as unwrapped lines about 70 >characters long. This is in accordance with the standard for that tag.) > >My question is two-fold: >1) How are all of you who do this sort of thing coping with this sort of >issue? >2) What, Bruce, would it take to get it to work right? > >Thanks for your attention, >Don docooker@utah-inter.net > > > > > > >==== FAMILY-ORIGINS-USERS Mailing List ==== >PLEASE send personal replies and "THANK YOU" message privately. All >messages on this list are archived and archiving takes up valuable space. > >============================== >Visit Ancestry.com for a FREE 14-Day Trial and enjoy access to the #1 >Source for Family History Online. Go to: >http://www.ancestry.com/subscribe/subscribetrial1y.asp?sourcecode=F11HB