> >Gus I have a MAC & I use PAF. > >peggy > > > Does PAF work on MAC systems? > > Gus It *is* possible to read the gedcom (a simple text file) using any Mac genealogy program. It is unknown (to me) how many can import a gedcom of that size. It is *not* possible, using a Mac, to use Herman's unzip & merge routine to uncompress and reassemble the downloaded zip(you can probably manage to get it uncompressed but the merge batch file is PC-specific). It *is* possible for a Mac to access the uncompressed gedcom file included on the cd. This is described here: http://jrshelby.com/opdcd/#macs This was the original purpose for there being a cd. For some reason (unknown to me), it takes an unusually large amount of time to import the big gedcom into Mac genealogy programs (typically more than 24 hours). Reunion is the only one I know to have succeeded. My guess is that it takes about 10 times as long to import the gedcom on a Mac as it does on a PC. It is possible to produce a cd containing the database made specifically for Macs. I heard from one person having the capability to do so, but apparently he lost interest. I sometimes find producing the cd for PCs to be expensive and demanding of my time; it is not hard for me to understand why one would be reluctant to undertake it for Mac with perhaps one-tenth the number of users. If you have interest in discussing the use of the OPD database with various programs, or use of the OPD d/b cd, feel free to join the OPD-CD-L mailing list (which exists for that purpose and is pretty much inactive since the advent of simplified and automated menus on the cd) and we'll discuss anything you like about such. Address an email to opd-cd-l-request@rootsweb.com and for the subject use the single word subscribe and leave everything else blank. About all that can be known about the cd can be found here: http://jrshelby.com/opdcd/#top If anyone cares to bring their Mac to the OPDC/SCGS picnic on 23 September, we'll have cds there and see what we can do with them. http://www.homestead.com/hisxmark/2000picnic.html John Robertson