What is a ANSI?

[Chrissy Confused]

I have been having trouble loading my gedcom on here:(

with the help of Val have manage it at long last, peeps keep asking me did I save it in ANSI, but I don't know what it is and how to use it

Can some one explain (in very simply terms) what it is as I have a small problem with my gedcom and need to do it again:(

[PeteW1959]

This reply may be a bit late (only 3 months!) but here goes.

ANSI:- American National Standards Institute

In relation to computer files usually refers to ANSI escape codes for text formatting.

Most people have heard of ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange). This is a standard that assigns numerical values to text characters where A=65, B=66 etc. to enable computers (which only understand numbers) to handle text. This was fine for the standard alphabet, numerical characters, common punctuation and a few control codes such as carriage return and backspace.

When colour and graphics came into computing an extended coding system was needed. The ANSI escape sequences were developed, using tha ASCII escape code (27) followed by the appropriate ANSI code to format the text with such things as bold, colour or even size.

Today most people don't come across such things, they are buried deep within the program code of whatever software you are using. However, some programs ask for an output format when saving files. This enables the enlightened to share files between sytems that are incompatible. For the most part saving files with ASCII or ANSI output is the standard.

Hope this explains it a bit.

Pete

[Darksecretz]

Hi Chrissy,

dont know the answer to that one, But seems Pete does :p

However, if you look at the link below it should help

http://www.familytreeforum.com/reference-information-how-guides/22430-how-upload-gedcom.html

[Caroline]

There are several pages about GEDCOMS in the Wiki now.

GEDCOM troubleshooter