Using PowerPoint to save a group of Images as a PDF

We genealogist find that we use tools that are not designed for genealogy; however they are just as useful to us. One such tool or software program that I found has been very useful in my genealogy is PowerPoint and I don’t mean for giving a monthly program to my genealogical society.

I have found PowerPoint to be a very useful tool for converting a series of pictures into a PDF document. The other day I was looking up US Revolutionary War Pension files via Anestry.com and found out that I could not save a group of pages in the file but I could save each individual page as an image. I wanted these as one document and remembered that PowerPoint does have the capability to take a group of images and create individual slides for each page. Once in PowerPoint, then I could save the printout of slides as a PDF document. The following are the steps I used to complete this task.

First of all, in Ancestry I had to save each image and I did this by naming each image “image ###” where the pound signs are the number of the image in the database.  Then I opened PowerPoint and I have 2010 version.  This brings up a blank slide. I switched to the “Insert” menu and then selected “Photo Album” and “New Photo Album”. This brings up the Photo Album pop-up box and I clicked the “File/Disk” button.  I had to find the folder that I had my images saved, and I click the first image and then moved to the last image and press “shift”+ right click and this will select all the images then select insert.  This will insert the images in file name order, which is the exact order I wanted since I gave them all an image number file name.  Next I clicked the “Create” button.  This proceeded to create all my slides plus a cover slide with the title of Photo Album and my name. This slide is perfect for me to create my source citation.

I decided I wanted my Ancestry “printer friendly” version of the source. Going back to the index page of the record, I select the Print button from the upper-right-hand corner of the screen. This brings up a nice “printer friendly” version of the screen and I proceed to use my Snipping Tool to save it as another jpg image.  I insert this image onto the title page of the PowerPoint presentation.  Now I have my source citation included as part of the PowerPoint Presentation.

Next I select File and then Save As, I change the “Save as Type” to PDF and make sure I have selected the proper location for my new file and give it a meaningful name.  After a few moments, this will bring up my new PDF file and it contains 22 pages of my newly created document. This will make it so much easier for me to share if I wish.  Now it is optional if you want to save the entire Presentation in the PowerPoint format, since you could easily recreate this from all the images you already have. I save the images in a sub-folder together. 

MyFamily.com

Recently Ancestry.com announced that it will be retiring five of its products including MyFamily.com.

Aside from being disappointment that Ancestry is giving up on MyFamily.com; I wish they would have at least tried to sell the site, however this whole process is a learning opportunity. I have learned not to take for granted sites like these. What I mean by this, is I have learned that I needed to be saving all the goodies that all my distant genealogy cousins had been submitting to the website. I took for granted that I could always go to this website and find what I wanted when I wanted it.

Now, MyFamily.com states that you can export the data and yes it can take a few days to generate that download, but do you know what you get? A total mess. You end up with a zip folder of all your photos, or in my case, 417 photos with useless names like 000a0d3a-0033-0000-0000-000000000000. Plus it did not do anything with all the documents that are stored in the file cabinet. There is a lot of important information there too!

So after I download and extracted the zip folder, I decided I would go through the Photos from MyFamily and rename all the ones in my extracted folder. Then I created an Excel spreadsheet to record all the valuable information such as file name, who submitted it, date it was submitted, date of photo, description and such. I must admit that the extracted file folder is easier to handle than me trying to save each photo individually through MyFamily. I have the MyFamily.com open on the left of the screen and my extracted folder open on the right. I rename the file and then open my excel file on the right and key in the file name and all the fields from MyFamily.com that belong to the picture. This is taking me a little while, but when I am done, I will know who the people are in the photos and who submitted the photo to the website.

Lesson learned, I should have been doing this from the very beginning and I would not have had to spend the last three days going through all these photos. I probably have at least two more days of photo renaming and then I need to go through the file cabinet (all 48 pages) and see what I want to save. I just have to right click and it saves the document. Again, many days of work.  Finally I will need to save the list members of the website, so I don't lose contact with all these valuable people. Many haven't been on the site in months and I hope they also know that MyFamily is going away.

My personal family haven't decided what they plan to use instead of MyFamily and I don't know if they will use anything to replace this. I know the main administrator has put in a lot of work into this website. I was even thinking of letting everyone know that I have renamed all the files and created this excel spreadsheet and I could send it to them as a zip folder. I will see how big the folder gets, otherwise I might have to make CD's and send them via snail mail. I hope to be able to send the documents too.