Importing MacFamilyTree & other Gedcom files

[mcdonald44]

Sorry for the many threads, but...

Reunion 8 demo/help has "Limited Info"...hmmmm...

Wondering if R8 can easily import MacFamilyTree, Heredis and other Gedcom files.

[fjvanbodegom]

Each programm has its own file format; so the file formats of Heredis, MacFamilyTree etc. are different from the Reunion file format.
But off course you can import Gedcom files made by other programms quick and easy.

The (nearly perfect) Reunion Manual has an very good chapter about Gedcom and its drawbacks.

[David G. Kanter]

Sorry for the many threads, but...
Reunion 8 demo/help has "Limited Info"...hmmmm.... . .The (nearly perfect) Reunion Manual has an very good chapter about Gedcom and its drawbacks.While Frans is correct about the full Reunion Manual, as was pointed out on the Leister Productions Web site from where you download the Demo (http://www.leisterpro.com/doc/demo/demo.php), the version that accompanies the Demo is limited to the Tutorial--which does, in my opinion, an excellent job of introducing a new user to the program. After all, it's a Demo of a commerical product; Reunion is not shareware. And Leister Productions has posted all the new features it has introduced with each version, starting with Version 5. (See the links at the bottom of this page on their Web site (http://www.leisterpro.com/doc/version8/features.php).)

Add me to the list of those looking to purchase Reunion 8/9.Jack: It would help (at least me) in responding to your queries if you would tell us what version of Reunion you own. (You've been posting in this "Using Reunion 8" forum, and other forums, since last December, but I don't find that info--or which Mac Operating System you're running.)

With regard to your intent to purchase Reunion 8 or 9: As you're running the Demo--which means you already have the capability to run Reunion 8--I'd recommend that after 6 months of seeing the discussion on ReunionTalk (and, apparently, some time playing with the Demo), you just make the jump to Reunion 8 now and not further delay having access to all the benefits (not to mention the full Manual) it has over your previous version. From my perspective, while even the full retail price is a bargain for all that Reunion 8 does, I'd suggest that the upgrade price makes your move "a steal". I know I'm not alone in being confident you won't regret that expense. (If your hesitance is about Reunion 8 now versus waiting for Reunion 9, I previously offered my own take on that here (http://www.reuniontalk.com/showthread.php?p=1283#post1283)--which followed Frank of Leister Productions saying "Our 'window' (within which you are able to get a free upgrade after just buying a version that gets upgraded) has always been at least 3 months.")

[mcdonald44]

While Frans is correct about the full Reunion Manual, as was pointed out on the Leister Productions Web site from where you download the Demo (http://www.leisterpro.com/doc/demo/demo.php), the version that accompanies the Demo is limited to the Tutorial--which does, in my opinion, an excellent job of introducing a new user to the program. After all, it's a Demo of a commerical product; Reunion is not shareware. And Leister Productions has posted all the new features it has introduced with each version, starting with Version 5. (See the links at the bottom of this page on their Web site (http://www.leisterpro.com/doc/version8/features.php).)

Jack: It would help (at least me) in responding to your queries if you would tell us what version of Reunion you own. (You've been posting in this "Using Reunion 8" forum, and other forums, since last December, but I don't find that info--or which Mac Operating System you're running.)

With regard to your intent to purchase Reunion 8 or 9: As you're running the Demo--which means you already have the capability to run Reunion 8--I'd recommend that after 6 months of seeing the discussion on ReunionTalk (and, apparently, some time playing with the Demo), you just make the jump to Reunion 8 now and not further delay having access to all the benefits (not to mention the full Manual) it has over your previous version. From my perspective, while even the full retail price is a bargain for all that Reunion 8 does, I'd suggest that the upgrade price makes your move "a steal". I know I'm not alone in being confident you won't regret that expense. (If your hesitance is about Reunion 8 now versus waiting for Reunion 9, I previously offered my own take on that here (http://www.reuniontalk.com/showthread.php?p=1283#post1283)--which followed Frank of Leister Productions saying "Our 'window' (within which you are able to get a free upgrade after just buying a version that gets upgraded) has always been at least 3 months.")

David,

Thx for the note.

Took a look at Reunion and others in January 2006, and have not had a chance to look again till now...sorry to be bothering all with my questions, but I still am not sure what the best software is.

My only way to find out what the best software is, is to talk to users on the forums.

R8 looks great, but using the DEMO, I am not being able to save, export, publish to the web and have a full manual to help me with my questions.

This leaves the forums as my only way to find out if R8 can do what I need.

Jack

[David G. Kanter]

. . .Took a look at Reunion and others in January 2006, and have not had a chance to look again till now...sorry to be bothering all with my questions, but I still am not sure what the best software is.

My only way to find out what the best software is, is to talk to users on the forums.

R8 looks great, but using the DEMO, I am not being able to save, export, publish to the web and have a full manual to help me with my questions.

This leaves the forums as my only way to find out if R8 can do what I need.OK, Jack; so you don't have any version of Reunion. Do you have any genealogy software--against which you're trying to compare Reunion's capabilities? If so, what it is? (It's likely some reader of ReunionTalk could point out a few key pros and cons to help you more quickly converge on a decision.) Have you checked to see if there is a local genealogy society in your area? If so, have you checked whether they have some Mac users as members? If there are, I'd urge you--if you can--to go to one of their meetings and talk one-on-one with such a user--and I'd be surprised if you didn't find an enthusiastic Reunion user among them with whom you could see a hands-on operation of Reunion.

In other words, again in my opinion, there are other ways to "skin the cat". With your the-forums-are-my-only-way approach you could spend a very long time trying incrementally to "pulse" us on the wide variety of operations that genealogy software should do for you--and, in the process, you're (in my opinion) penalizing yourself by not taking the plunge and getting started. (Many people find that it was "yesterday" that they should have put what family information they had into a proper genealogy database and interviewed that elderly relative who is no longer there to help with some of their "brick walls".)

Getting on my soapbox
With what you've seen in the Demo, the advice you've gotten already via ReunionTalk, and--if you browsed through the "Top 20 Reasons to Buy Reunion" and the links to the new features over time I pointed you to on the Leister Productions Web site, you ought to be comfortable that Reunion 8--while it may have some limitation that will affect you--is extraordinarily easy to use, powerful, tailorable, and intuitive. Most of us who have looked at other software still put Reunion well ahead of the pack--if not way, way, ahead--as the best, general, genealogy software for the Mac. And the ~$100 price tag: It's a small price to pay for superb, well-tested, flexible-to-meet your needs as they grow, software. And when I consider how efficiently it does all that it does, the time it saves me, and the just plain fun it makes of working with genealogy data, that price--while not pennies--is one of the few bargains today.
Getting off my soapbox

I'll always acknowledge it's your money, not mine, that's involved here; but at some point--which I'd respectfully suggest is now--converge on a decision and move forward with properly recording and having readily available to share as charts, reports (including on the Web), and (if need be) GEDCOMs, your family's genealogy.

I hope the above has been of some help, and I'd look forward to your future posts as an owner of Reunion 8. Best wishes with your genealogy endeavor--even if you decide on another program.

[mcdonald44]

OK, Jack; so you don't have any version of Reunion. Do you have any genealogy software--against which you're trying to compare Reunion's capabilities? If so, what it is? (It's likely some reader of ReunionTalk could point out a few key pros and cons to help you more quickly converge on a decision.) Have you checked to see if there is a local genealogy society in your area? If so, have you checked whether they have some Mac users as members? If there are, I'd urge you--if you can--to go to one of their meetings and talk one-on-one with such a user--and I'd be surprised if you didn't find an enthusiastic Reunion user among them with whom you could see a hands-on operation of Reunion...Dave....WOW!

Really appreciate your passion for R8 and the quick replies, that alone makes me very high on getting R8.

My main interest is trying to see samples of large families and how the descendant chart can be viewed on the web and printed on paper.

I have not yet been able to see any good sample of the charts with large families and the flexibility of the formats (horizontal/vertical).

Have sampled/demoed

R8
MacFamilyTree:

http://homepage.mac.com/mcdonald44/McDonald-Family-Tree-Gedit%20Copy/118.html

Ancestry.com (on-line editing/postong)
Heredis
********

have even tried some business org chart software.

What I am looking for is to be able to print and publish our family tree:

http://homepage.mac.com/mcdonald44/Family-Tree-2005.jpg

actually created this chart using an old org chart for MAC OS9 and saved as a pict/jpeg and published to my .Mac account.

So my many siblings and cousins can view and edit and hopefully be able to print a nice descendat chart for their homes.

Thx again for the passion for R8 and quick replies..it means alot.

[theKiwi]

My main interest is trying to see samples of large families and how the descendant chart can be viewed on the web and printed on paper.

I have not yet been able to see any good sample of the charts with large families and the flexibility of the formats (horizontal/vertical).

Tim Lundin is the man to talk to about large printed charts - he has a business (on the side?) printing large charts for Reunion (and other software) users. He's a regular contributor on these boards. I have a couple of the charts he's printed out - one of them a timeline that I forget how long it was - 20-30 feet - it sure was impressive as I "threw" the roll across the floor at a Genealogy Seminar!!

On the Web side of things, large charts aren't so appropriate or useful since they require so much scrolling, either up/down or sideways or both, and in terms of others being able to print them out from your site, the limiting factor is almost always going to be that most people have a printer that is limited to Letter (and legal) sized paper, so charts larger than will get shrunk to the point of unreadability

I've been using TNG (The Next Generation of Genealogy Site Building) for my web data for several years now. This is a PHP/MySQL setup that uses as its basis a GEDCOM file I export from Reunion.

You can see my site here

http://roger.lisaandroger.com/

And for an example of a dynamic pedigree chart see my grandfather here...

http://roger.lisaandroger.com/pedigree.php?personID=I4&tree=Roger

and note the other tabs for descendants, timeline, etc.

TNG doesn't generate graphic descendant charts currently, only the text based type, I guess in part due to the unpredictability of what the output might look like.

Roger

[mcdonald44]

Thx for the update.

Disappointed that there appears to be no easy way to publish and print large descendant Trees.

Funny how we call these family trees, but the software cannot print publish a tree, only branches.

I am pretty sure I saw some pretty good descendant charts/tree in R8.

Jack

[theKiwi]

Thx for the update.

Disappointed that there appears to be no easy way to publish and print large descendant Trees.

Funny how we call these family trees, but the software cannot print publish a tree, only branches.Jack

Reunion itself is capable of creating absolutely amazing descendant trees, timelines, pedigree charts etc.

http://www.familygraphics.com/GalleryPage.html

Where the difficulties lie is in putting that chart online as an image and then having other members of your family print it out, where their choices are almost certainly limited to printing on Letter size paper - or Legal if they go buy a package of it.

Tim is much better placed to comment on the largest sizes of charts that have been produced (at least by Heartland Family Graphics), but Reunion is capable of generating charts of unlimited dimensions. It's the making them useful on the internet that is the problem.

Roger

[ttl]

Reunion is capable of generating charts of unlimited dimensions. It's the making them useful on the internet that is the problem.
There's not much more to add to this. The link to the gallery page above gives a sampling of charts that some customers have displayed at their reunions. The charting function is very good and very flexible and you really shouldn't run into much in the way of limitations if you want to put your tree on paper with Reunion.

Regarding posting charts on the web, or sharing with Windows-based relatives (interesting image here), there's been a fair amount of discussion in the past about saving the Reunion chart to PDF format. This offers the advantages of keeping the file size relatively small, preserving full resolution/text quality, and cross-platform compatibility.

[mcdonald44]

Reunion itself is capable of creating absolutely amazing descendant trees, timelines, pedigree charts etc.

http://www.familygraphics.com/GalleryPage.html

Where the difficulties lie is in putting that chart online as an image and then having other members of your family print it out, where their choices are almost certainly limited to printing on Letter size paper - or Legal if they go buy a package of it.

Tim is much better placed to comment on the largest sizes of charts that have been produced (at least by Heartland Family Graphics), but Reunion is capable of generating charts of unlimited dimensions. It's the making them useful on the internet that is the problem.

Roger

Roger,

Thx...

Just looking for help in trying to see someone that has alternated the horizontal and vertical formats in R8

Would like to be able to duplicate our current family tree in R8

http://homepage.mac.com/mcdonald44/Family-Tree-2005.jpg

Note the horizontal format mixed in with the vertical format.

Jack

[ttl]

Would like to be able to duplicate our current family tree in R8

http://homepage.mac.com/mcdonald44/Family-Tree-2005.jpg

Note the horizontal format mixed in with the vertical format.

JackReunion won't do this. Closest it will come is top to bottom waterfall orientation.

[DBaddorf]

You could create 2 charts --- do the top in left to right fashion,
and at the bottom, post a 2nd chart of the 1 person you want
vertical details on.


horizontal example:
http://www.familygraphics.com/GalleryPages/29-Hartt.htm
called top-to-bottom descendant chart

vertical example:
http://www.familygraphics.com/GalleryPages/26-DeHovitz.htm
called top-to-bottom waterfall descendant chart