Tuesday's Tips provide brief how-to's to help you learn to use the Legacy Family Tree software with new tricks and techniques.
Some hints about Media Files
Media files can be attached to your trees in Legacy. Media files are photo images such as jpg files. They can also be document files like MS Word. Or the can be pdf, sound or video files. You'll get the most out of your media files if you follow these "best practices."
1) It is a good idea to keep all of your Media in a single folder (subfolders within this folder are perfectly okay). What you don't want is your media scattered all over your hard drive. It is also okay to have separate main media folders for each family file you have, if you have more than one.
2) You do not have to use the Legacy default folder (the default folder is Documents\Legacy Family Tree\Media). If you use another folder then simply tell Legacy where it is in Options > Customize > 6. Locations > Option 6.2. Notice that Option 6.2 has a (ff) behind it. This means it is Family File specific and that is why it is okay to have separate media folders for your family files if you have more than one family file. You can keep your media on another drive (partitioned or external hard drive) or on cloud storage, again, all you have to do is let Legacy know where the media files are.
3) Windows imposes a 260 character limit on file paths (you can read all about Windows file paths here https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa365247(v=vs.85).aspx. Here is my base file path, C:\Users\Michele\Documents\Legacy Family Tree\Media\ I have already used 52 characters. For those people that have a complex system of subfolders/and or file names, you can easily get up to the Windows limit. If you are in that position, you might want to put your main media folder directly on the C: drive like this… C:\Media\ I am now down to 9 characters for my base path.
4) You do not want to have media files that have the same name. For example, 50 files named deathcertificate.jpg. A lot of people do this and think it is okay because they have all of these files in different subfolders. This is not a good idea. Every file should have a unique name.
5) Run the Media Relinker periodically just to make sure everything is okay with your Media files.
6) If you need to rename an image file, do it from within the Picture Center so that you don't lose your media link. Right now this only works for image files. There is a suggestion in the offical queue for the programmers to consider to change the Picture Center to a Media Center so that you can work with other types of files using this tool. For now you when you rename a .pdf or other type of non image file you will need to then manually relink it.
7) When you link a file, please select the correct file type from the dropdown menu (.jpg = picture, .pdf = document, .wav = sound etc.)
8) When working with images specifically, please take a look at this excellent article that Jim Terry (tech support) wrote http://support.legacyfamilytree.com/article/AA-00924
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For video tech tips checkout the Legacy Quick Tips page. These short videos will make it easy for you to learn all sort of fun and interesting ways to look at your genealogy research.
Michele Simmons Lewis is part of the technical support team at Millennia, the makers of the Legacy Family Tree software program. With over 20 years of research experience, Michele’s passion is helping new genealogists get started on the right foot through her writings, classes and lectures. She is the former staff genealogist and weekly columnist for the McDuffie Mirror and now authors Ancestoring, a blog geared toward the beginner/intermediate researcher.
The ability to attach PDFs to the media gallery is only in the Deluxe version both in Legacy 7 and Legacy 8. If you were attaching PDFs in Legacy 7 you were using the Deluxe version and if you were using the Deluxe version that would mean you would be eligible for a discount on Legacy 8 Deluxe. You can contact us at support@legacyfamilytree.com and we can check our order database to see if you ever purchased Legacy 7.
If you never uninstalled Legacy 7 it is still on your computer. Legacy 8 does not overwrite Legacy 7. If you did uninstall, you can reinstall it from here http://support.legacyfamilytree.com/article/AA-00899 If you were using Legacy 7 Deluxe we can give you your customer number to unlock the Deluxe features but you will be missing out on a lot that Legacy 8 has to offer.
As far as which is better PDF or JPG it depends. If I am downloading images from the internet I leave them in the form that they are already in. The exception is if something is in jpg form and it is also in multiple pages. In that case I will consolidate them into a single PDF and then attach that. For example, If I download a 4 page will that is 4 separate jpgs I will turn it into a single pdf.
As far as how you name your files. You need to use whatever makes sense to YOU. The only thing you need to worry about is being CONSISTENT with how you name your files so that you can find what you are looking for quickly and that you don’t accidentally duplicate.