FREEWARE FOR FAMILY HISTORY
©2015 by Donald R. Snow
Sections of the Notes
- Welcome and Introduction
- Windows Explorer
- Everything
- Q-Dir
- PDF-XChange Viewer
- Our Timelines
- Conclusions
This page was last updated 2015-01-04.
Go to Utah Valley Technology and
Genealogy Group Home Page , Don's
FH Class Notes Page , Don's
Supplementary FH Notes Page .
WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION
- Instructor is Donald R. Snow (snowd@math.byu.edu)
of Provo and St. George, Utah.
- These notes are posted on http://uvtagg.org/classes/dons/dons-classes.html
. Also posted there on the Supplementary
FH Notes Page is Freeware
For Family History: Supplementary Notes that lists these and
more than 60 additional free programs helpful in FH.
- Tips: (1) To have an icon on your desktop to open your
browser and go directly to these notes drag the icon from in front
of the address in your browser onto your desktop. (2) To
open a link from here in another tab, but keep your place in these
notes, hold down the Control key while clicking the link.
- This class will discuss and demonstrate some programs that are
freeware for genealogy and family history.
- "Freeware" means completely free with no "nag" screens; can
use freely and give copies to anyone else.
- "Shareware" means that if you plan to use it regularly, you
should send a specified donation (usually small) to the author
at the address given in the program.
- "Portable" means the program can be run from a flashdrive and
doesn't have to be installed on the computer, so you can use it
at home or at a FHC or anywhere else
- "App" means application, i.e. software; the term is used more
often with mobile devices
- "Open Source" means freeware including the source code, so
you can edit it, if you know programming.
- Video -- The Best Things In Life Are Free -- made with the
freeware PhotoFilmStrip program on the Freeware: Supplementary
Notes page.
WINDOWS EXPLORER
- Windows Explorer is built into all versions of Windows; icon is
a file folder or you can get to it by clicking on Start (Globe)
> All Programs > Accessories > Windows Explorer --
Note: This is NOT the Internet Explorer browser
- A little-known, but very helpful feature, is the Preview Panel
-- Windows Explorer > Show Preview Pane (rectangular icon in
upper right corner next to the Help button (Question mark)) --
Now, for all file types that you have a default program set for,
e.g., text files, pdf's, and photos, when you highlight the file
name it shows a small version of what's in that file in the
Preview Panel; you can expand the Preview Pane by dragging the
side to widen it; this is very helpful when looking for something
on your computer or to rename files without opening them; saves
much time
EVERYTHING
- Extremely helpful program for file management to find
files, run, copy, move, rename, organize
- Available from http://www.voidtools.com/
- Finds all files on your entire hard drive, even if you forgot
where you put them
- Builds an index which it updates; uses this to find files
immediately when you type in any characters in the title of the
file; has an option to highlight search terms in the file names
- It really helps if you name your files in a systematic way,
e.g. I include "--YYYY-MM-DD" after the file name so the files
all sort in alphabetical order with the latest at the bottom;
can also search files by date this way -- see further discussion
of using EVERYTHING on other notes on my FH Class Notes page by
doing a Google search there for "everything" (without the
quotes)
- I use this in tandem with a program like Windows Explorer
and drag-and-drop to organize files into folders when I want
since it finds them wherever they are in all folders
Q-DIR
- Q-DIR is a multi-panel file manager that works like
having several copies of Windows Explorer open at once so it
makes moving or copying files much easier
- Available from
http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/q_dir.html -- for
Windows 7 download the 32- or 64-bit version, whichever version
your Windows 7 is -- if you don't know which version you need,
click on the Start (Globe) button > Control Panel > System
and look for System Type - it will be either 32-bit or 64-bit
- Can be set with up to 4 panels in various arrangements with each
panel independent, so you can show different directories in each
- Also has an option to print a list of files in a folder --
helpful to form lists of files, e.g. all text files or photos in a
folder
PDF-XCHANGE VIEWER
- Freeware editor for pdf's, allows typing on pdf's for
filling out forms, etc. -- free for private use
- Available from -- http://www.tracker-software.com/product/pdf-xhange-viewer
-- can download installer for Windows 7 or even for the Portable
version; also a manual you can download there
- Has a slider at top to increase and decrease size of image; has
split and merge capabilities for pdf's
- Includes a good Optical Character Recognition (OCR) program for
pdf's -- Open the pdf in PDF-XCHANGE VIEWER and click on the OCR
icon or else Document > OCR; tell it which pages to OCR and the
quality of the original print (Low, Medium, or High), and click
Start; for a 100-page book it will take many minutes, but can let
it run while you are doing other things
OUR TIMELINES
- Free website at -- http://ourtimelines.com/
-- that generates timeline of your ancestor's life with world
events
- Click on "Ready to check it out? Just click here" (at bottom)
- Enter name, birth and death years, and click Generate Timeline
- Shows timeline in color with bars of length of time that world
event was occurring -- For printable version you get it all in
black and white
- "At Age XX" at end of line is how old your ancestor was when
that event happened
- Can add up to 10 additional events for a person -- check the
button for Personal Events to have these show as yellow bars --
sometimes helps to include your ancestor's death year on events
like marriage so the yellow bar shows the length of time until
your ancestor died
- Can print the timeline in color or in black and white
- Can save as pdf to keep colors FastStone Capture using the
scrolling window feature -- can then scroll up and down in the
saved pdf
- Can save it in html (Hypertext Markup Language) by clicking on
File > Save Page As > Webpage HTML Only and tell it where to
save the file -- File can then be opened in a browser (e.g. Chrome
or Firefox) without being on the Internet -- you see it as though
you were on the Internet
CONCLUSIONS
- For many more free programs to help with FH and other computer
tasks see my Freeware
Supplementary Notes .
Go to Utah Valley Technology and
Genealogy Group Home Page , Don's
FH Class Notes Page , Don's
Supplementary FH Notes Page .