Gordon, Do you compact your file regularly? If you have not done it, then you should first try that. Another possibility is the large amount of media items in your file. FTM 16 embeds those images and does have a limit as to how much media can be added to the file; too much media will make the file sluggish in FTM. This is especially true if the media items are very large. Once a file is overloaded with media items, saved books and reports, it may cause simple tasks like adding notes to become non-responsive. Please note I said *may*, but I suspect that this could be your problem. Compacting may help. I encourage you to reduce the size of your media items and to delete any saved items you no longer need. After changes like this be sure to compact your file again which will decrease it's size and hopefully aid in resolving your problem. Linda in Costa Rica Monroe County, New York Genealogy http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~monroenys Monroe County, New York History http://freepages.history.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~monroenys -----Original Message----- From: gordon Sent: Saturday, 20 August, 2011 5:06 PM To: ftm-tech@rootsweb.com Subject: [FTM-TECH] FTM16 notes in scrapbook Hi all: I have used FTM for many years now and have found Ver.8.0 and 16 to be the best of the lot. I started with the DOS version many years ago. At present I have 133,000+ indivs. and about 2500+ pics scanned in. Ver 16 continues to work well, altho a bit slower now of course. I have a problem when typing in notes in the indiv's scrapbook. It is very vexing, and likely easily fixed, but it is driving me nutso at present. Sometimes when I type in a long document, say a Biography, and after having it spell-checked, the program will not exit back to the basic input screen when I click OK. Basically it just sits there looking at me, and the only work around that works for me is to copy all the text and save it in a word processor for future re-insertion, as when rebooting up, the text I did type in is of course gonzo, completely. I can usually reinsert the text from the word pro file, but not always. I have most of the data saved on an external harddrive, and backup daily. I also put a back-up on line at genealogy.com, where I can safe data for $10/year. Cheap really. As I said, this is really, really vexing sometimes, as after a long period of time inputting a lot of text, the darn software lets me down! Ideas anyone? I presently have 2 Gb RAM and an Alluratek external HD. Regards, Gordon

Gordon I am amazed that FTM is working at all!!! You unfortunately don't say what the average media size but I will guess that they are 2 MB+ each or larger. If you simply embed typical scans or JPGs which probably start at 2 MB+ then I think you are pushing FTM a bit too hard. One of the best way to reduce you media load in FTM 16 where the media are embedded and not linked but still have the same number of media, is to pre-edit your media files to around 600 pixels (about 130kB) for a typical heads and shoulders shot. When I used to run FTM 16 and earlier, I would take a copy of the media item I wished to embed in FTM and downsize it to the numbers noted above. So I would have at least two copies of my media. The hi-res master scan saved as a non-lossy TIF file, or in the case of media from a digital camera typically a 2 MB plus JPG as an "FTM" JPG image. I would only embed the edited media into FTM but of course still retaining the hi-res shot for archive purposes. If I was posting the image to the web I would reduce it further and optimize it for web viewing, so then I would have three versions of the same image. Get the idea? Now if you have say 2500 X 2 MB+ images in your FTM 16 file that is 5,000 MB of image load in the file. Getting a bit heavy plus all your 133,000 names etc. I am frankly amazed that FTM is working at all! 133,000 names your records must have survived Noah's floods and you are back to the lady who ate the fruit I think. :-) Now by pre-editing to an average of [say] 130 kB you have reduced the image load for the same number of images to around 325 MB, a very, very, significant reduction in your particular file. Still a lot of image load but a lot better that what I think you may have done. Now of course I don't know if that is what you have done but if it is I would be replacing the hi-res images with much lower res ones. Still retaining the hi-res ones as well of course but not using them in FTM. Looking on screen or in a typical FTM report the lower res images are just fine and it will make a HUGE difference to how FTM works. The second thing that is obvious from your question is that your RAM is far too low for the file size. You should double it at least. By the way what is the file size and what version of Windows are you using? Get back with these parameters and how you are handling your images and we may be able to tease this out a bit more Of course FTM 2008 and above does not embed images but simply links them with a small link and a thumbnail image so scanned image size is not an issue in terms of file size. John Donaldson -----Original Message----- From: gordon Sent: Saturday, 20 August, 2011 5:06 PM To: ftm-tech@rootsweb.com Subject: [FTM-TECH] FTM16 notes in scrapbook Hi all: I have used FTM for many years now and have found Ver.8.0 and 16 to be the best of the lot. I started with the DOS version many years ago. At present I have 133,000+ indivs. and about 2500+ pics scanned in. Ver 16 continues to work well, altho a bit slower now of course. I have a problem when typing in notes in the indiv's scrapbook. It is very vexing, and likely easily fixed, but it is driving me nutso at present. Sometimes when I type in a long document, say a Biography, and after having it spell-checked, the program will not exit back to the basic input screen when I click OK. Basically it just sits there looking at me, and the only work around that works for me is to copy all the text and save it in a word processor for future re-insertion, as when rebooting up, the text I did type in is of course gonzo, completely. I can usually reinsert the text from the word pro file, but not always. I have most of the data saved on an external harddrive, and backup daily. I also put a back-up on line at genealogy.com, where I can safe data for $10/year. Cheap really. As I said, this is really, really vexing sometimes, as after a long period of time inputting a lot of text, the darn software lets me down! Ideas anyone? I presently have 2 Gb RAM and an Alluratek external HD. Regards, Gordon