Genealogy Chat

I have just saved to floppy disc some deaths that I found on FreeBMD. Could anyone tell me what format they are in. I saved them this way because there was not many of them but when I tried to open them in Microsoft Word, it was unreadable. I have looked through all their FAQs and got nowhere and there does not appear to be an e mail address where I can ask them. Any help would be appreciated. Mary

Mary, I had the same problem and it was a long list I found. I ended up copying them. I couldnt save them to word. Mary. (maybe its a Mary thing)

Thanks Mary. Glad I am not the only one. No it's not a Mary thing, it's an age thing with me. Regards. Mary

sorry to state the obvious but you did mean FreeBMD did you and not 1837? If they're pages from 1837 you'll need DjVu which is a free download from 1837 :) Sioux

Hi there, Yes I did mean FreeBMD. Mary

You can save them to Wordpad.

Thanks Geoff, I have already tried that, it will open up in Wordpad but it is still unreadable. It did not say what format I was saving it in so I presumed that it was plain text but it was far from plain. I thought it might have been gedcom but it does not look like that. I was wondering if it was ASCII. It has been years since I downloaded anything in that format and I have forgotten what I did. It may be in something that I have never heard of. Thanks anyway for your help. Mary

I just copy from FreeBMD and paste into Wordpad.

Thanks Geoff, Have I got this right? You don't actually save anything to disc you just copy the web site page and then paste it in wordpad. Well I will give it a try. Thanks very much. Mary

Mary Just highlight the actual text you want and copy and paste it, rather than the whole page. Lynne

Thanks Lynn, It seems I always like doing things the hard way. Regards, Mary

The files are being saved as .ss spreadsheet files and I think Microsoft Works is needed to open these. I'm sure they used to be saved in another format that could be easily read. Crista

Thanks Crista, Yes it has got ss next to the file number and I must admit I have never seen this before. Never thought of it as meaning spread sheet. I will try it in Microsoft excel which I think is a spread sheet. I am not going to give up on this one, I will try it in everything I have got. Thank you very much for your help. Mary.