John Interesting comments - thanks. Your last para does give further pause for thought. By tying the programme so closely with Ancestry, and as you say restricting choice, as time passes FTM will look more and more like a monopoly, especially to newbies. If we were talking about operating systems - and especially Microsoft - the European Court or other authorities would be fining the makers of FTM and ordering them to be more open. May be someone will try to challenge them. ... David M -----Original Message----- From: John Hanson Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2012 6:54 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [SOG-UK] Upgrade from FTM2006? David I only have FTM2011 on my machines at the minute (no I don't use it - just that it is nice to keep up with what others are doing) but I could find an old one. But having looked at exporting a file from it an idea came to the fore that had been lurking for a while - its default is the export in FTM format GEDCOM - you need to change the option to GEDCOM 5.5 to get a version that is more compatible with other programs. I seem to remember that the old versions had the self-same problem. Maybe that will help. Many programs these days include an option to import directly from another programs database but the later versions of FTM are lacking from these. Interestingly I was talking to Simon Orde (author of FH) at Olympia this year and I gather that it is impossible to get access to the underlying FTM database and unlike most of the other companies who publish the details of the database structure FTM refuse to give out any information. Their inability to export a GEDCOM that is compatible with other programs strikes me as "once we've got them - make it impossible to leve" Hope this may help Regards John Hanson -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of David Martin Sent: 19 April 2012 06:12 To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [SOG-UK] Upgrade from FTM2006? Prompted by comments from others on this list and elsewhere, I've gone back again to check my "A4 charting" issue with FTM2012. With additional massaging of the settings, I am able to make FTM2012 do charts on one A4 page on a par with FTM2006. I haven't yet made the big move from FTM2006 to FTM2012 but there's few reasons not to. One is that I can never go back, so I am testing it extensively first on 'dummy' files. Happily, it does not force me to use Ancestry (although I use it separately) or online trees. I have largely given up on the idea of transferring to Family Historian, for the simple reason given below. Happy to hear other views but, for me, it is now a question of 'when' rather than 'if'..... David M From: David Martin <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Monday, 16 April 2012, 8:25 Subject: [SOG-UK] Upgrade from FTM2006? As is well known, the programme Family Tree Maker was changed significantly five years ago, and many found it poor and have held on to their old programme (FTM16/2006) ever since. As I will probably have to upgrade one day, I've been keeping an eye on FTM and one of its competitors. I have now tried FTM2012 and compared it to the latest edition of Family Historian (v5). I think these are now both pretty good programmes. Many of the problems with the new (post-2006) FTM have been ironed out. I judge that its development has been influenced a little too much by the ambition of linking it to Ancestry and syncing with online trees (although this will be in its favour for those who like that facility). To avoid that influence, I would tend to choose FH - all else being equal. However, I am finding it difficult to choose between them - each for a different reason. The single problem I have with opting for FH5 is that it would do a less good job of picking up my existing files and data. To transfer from FTM16/2006 to FH requires the use of GEDCOM export/import. As is well-documented, FTM's GEDCOM is imperfect for this purpose and some data will be mishandled by FH. It is quite marginal (most important data is fine) but it will be irritating and relatively onerous to correct. The single problem I have with opting for FTM2012 is its poor ability to produce and print an ancestor pedigree or descendant chart (with BMD labels) on a single page of A4 with as many generations as possible showing. The old FTM does this brilliantly. Family Historian does it just as well. But it is surprising to report that FTM2012 falls a long way short. Its horizontal Pedigree Ancestor chart has a limited capability, although the vertical one is an acceptable alternative. In the case of its Descendant tree, it falls between impossible or unusable! So I am not sure which programme to pick (even though I've paid for FTM2012, as there's no trial version). Maybe I'll stick with good old FTM2006 for a while longer....? David M ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message