Frequently Asked Questions

Main Page > What is Family History CD? > Frequently Asked Questions

• What does Family History CD do?
  Family History CD is meant for people who have files on their computer that they'd like to share with others such as photos, documents, audio, and video files. It guides you through the steps of organizing and describing your files. You burn a CD with a front page that you design with buttons linking to your files. The CD runs automatically on any Windows computer that it is put into, so accessing your information is a snap! Just point and click. See other areas of this web site for more information.
• Does Family History CD help me write my history?
  Not really. Once you have your files made (documents, pictures, audio/video clips, etc), Family History CD helps you gather and organize them and distribute them on a multimedia CD-ROM.
• What file formats can I use?
  Family History CD doesn't limit you on the file formats you can use. Any file is acceptable. However, there are a few things to be aware of:
  
  When choosing the file format for a document, for example, you want to be sure that the people that run your CD will be able to read it. Some file formats are readable on all computers (txt, rtf). With others, the receiving computer may not have software that can read it (wpd, doc).
  
  PDF is an excellent choice for a document format because Family History CD puts a PDF reader right on your CD in case they don't have one installed. If they try to open a PDF document from your CD, it will automatically offer to install the PDF reader if they don't have one.
• Does it run on Macintosh computers?
  No, at the moment there is no direct support for Macintosh computers. That may come in future versions of the software.
  
  Note: We've heard that it runs fine when using "Virtual PC" on Macs.
• What software do others need to run my CD's?
  No software is needed for others to run the CD's that you create. They do not need to purchase Family History CD. If the computer has Windows 95 or higher, the CD will run just fine. However, if you include files that need special software to view them, that's up to you.
• How much information can I fit on a CD?
  You have about 640MB of space in a project. You can have as many files as you like as long as you don't go over this limit. When adding files, a status bar shows how much space is left.
  
  If you have more information than can fit into one project, you can always have 2 projects.