RootsMagic 8:Working With Media

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RootsMagic lets you add unlimited media items (pictures, audio clips, video clips, or files) to your database. When you add a media item, RootsMagic stores a link to that media item, but does not put the media item itself into the database. You can then "tag" a picture or media item with the person, family, event, source, citation, or place the media item refers to. A media item can have more than one tag, so you can, for example, tag a census image with the people and family mentioned in the image, the source or citation for the census, and the place the census image refers to.

There are 2 screens where you can see the photos in your database:

1. The Media Page will display all the photos in the database. You can enter text into the Search field to have RootsMagic filter the displayed thumbnails to only show those whose caption or filename contain the text you are searching for.
2. The Media slide-in will show just the media which has been tagged for a single person, place, source, etc. You can open a media slide-in by clicking the Media button on the edit screen for a person, source, place, etc. As a shortcut, if you click the media box in the Edit Person fact list, RootsMagic will display the media for that fact.

Both the media gallery and album display small "thumbnail" images on the left side, while the right side will show details about the highlighted media item, including the caption, description, filename, and the items which the media item has been tagged with. You can click the "List" button to view the images in a list format (caption and filename) instead of thumbnails. Clicking the same button will switch back to thumbnails.

A search field is provided which will let you filter the images displayed to those which have captions or filenames which contain the text you search for.

Options in the Media Album include: Ø

Add new media - Click this button to add a new item (a photo/image, file, sound clip, or video clip) to the media album through the Add Media Item dialog.  If you have a lot of images to add to a media album, you can also drag and drop those items into RootsMagic's media album all at once.  You can then select them one at a time in the album to add the caption or description, or to tag them to other records.

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Add from gallery – Click this button to add new media by selecting an items from the Media Gallery.

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View/Edit media – Click this button to open the highlighted media item in the Edit Media dialog.

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Properties - Opens the media properties dialog. This shows you the file name of the item, and lets you add or edit caption and description, as well as date and your own file reference number for the selected item.

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Remove media – Click this button to remove the highlighted media item from the database. You will be asked if you want to remove the selected item. Click "Remove media" to confirm you want to remove the item, or Cancel to close the dialog. If there are items tagged you will be told of this, and asked again if you are sure you want to delete it. If you click "Remove Media" again, the item will be deleted and the connections to people families or other items in the database will also be removed. Click Cancel to close the dialog

Note: If you just want to remove a media item from a person's media album, but leave it in other albums, just delete the tag.

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Print – Click this button to print the highlighted image. In the Report Settings dialog:

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Print Captions (if available) – Tells RootsMagic to print the captions with the images if they are available

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Print Descriptions (if available) – Tells RootsMagic to print the Descriptions if they are available

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Choose Fonts and Layout to change the settings from the default values. (Click Reset of you want to return to the default settings.)

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Click "Generate Report" to display the image in the Report Viewer, or Cancel to close the dialog.

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Tools - Several tools to manipulate items in the Album

·Rearrange media items - Allows you to rearrange the order of photos in the media album. A list of the photos will appear on screen, where you can drag and drop the photo names into the desired order and click OK.

·Fix broken media links - Searches your computer to find media items and relink them to the correct person, family, event, etc.

Note: Since RootsMagic does not store the item in the database itself, if you move your RootsMagic files to a different computer, you also must copy your media items to the other computer. If you put them in the same directory on the second computer as you had them on the original computer, the links will continue to work. If you put them in a different folder, you can use the search and replace feature to update the links, or use the Fix broken media links option above.

• Media list
• Adding media items
• Editing media items
• Media options