Printer codes for italic text, and Ancestry

[Charlie Towne]

I'm in the process of creating a tree at Ancestry, by uploading a GEDCOM
file created using TMG to GEDCOM. (Thanks very much to Janis Rodriguez
for the Ancestry.com template, and to Terry Riegel for his tips on
uploading to Ancestry.)

For text that in TMG is rendered in italics using printer codes (e.g.,
book titles, ship names), the printer codes are replaced with HTML
codes, as specified in T2G's "Printer Codes" section. But at Ancestry,
the HTML codes are apparently ignored, and the text is displayed in a
normal font, not italics, including the opening and closing HTML tags.

I assume this is an Ancestry issue, not a T2G issue. For those that have
trees at Ancestry - is there a way to display text there in italics? If
so, can it be done by specifying something different in T2G's "Printer
Codes" section?

(There's a related question on why some [ITAL:]/[:ITAL] printer codes
are replaced with <i>/</i> (like those in text I entered in memos and
citation details), and some with <em>/</em> (like those in source
titles). But that question is moot if there's no way to display text in
italics at Ancestry.)

--
Charlie Towne
ceto...@gmail.com

[John Cardinal]

Charlie,

I was hoping someone else would answer because I do not know the answer to your question about Ancestry and italic text.

I do not recall why [ITAL:][:ITAL] sometimes produces “<i></i>” and sometimes “<em></em>”. The semantic difference in HTML is that one is a typeface style only, and the other indicates emphasis. For a source entry, I would think the title of a book (or some other title) would use “<i></i>”, i.e., the italics are a typeface and do not indicate emphasis. That’ snot to say the title isn’t important, but emphasis and importance are two different things. So, T2G seems to be doing the opposite of what I’d guess.

 

John Cardinal

 

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[Charlie Towne]

I asked in one of the Ancestry users groups at Facebook, and was told
that italic text is not supported. So for the Printer Codes, I've
eliminated all the "Substitute HTML" choices, and ITAL now has "Remove
printer code." That removes the Printer Codes from TMG tag memos.

But for Sources, when "Use Formatted Source as TITL" is checked, in the
GEDCOM TITL tag the [ITAL:]/[:ITAL] printer codes are still being
replaced with HTML codes, not removed. For italicized General Source
Elements in the Full Footnote template, they're replaced with
<em>/</em>. For italicized text in Supplemental Source Elements in the
Full Footnote (i.e., COMMENTS), they're replaced with <i>/</i>. Oddly,
in the GEDCOM NOTE tag for the source, where the COMMENTS also appear,
the printer codes _are_ removed.

If "Use Formatted Source as TITL" is unchecked, the GEDCOM TITL tag
contains all the General Source Elements, and the NOTE tag contains the
COMMENTS, all without any HTML codes. The resulting citations at
Ancestry aren't as nicely formatted as they would be using TMG's Full
Footnote template, but they're good enough for my purposes.

> Charlie,
>
> I was hoping someone else would answer because I do not know the answer
> to your question about Ancestry and italic text.
>
> I do not recall why [ITAL:][:ITAL] sometimes produces “<i></i>” and
> sometimes “<em></em>”. The semantic difference in HTML is that one is a
> typeface style only, and the other indicates emphasis. For a source
> entry, I would think the title of a book (or some other title) would use
> “<i></i>”, i.e., the italics are a typeface and do not indicate
> emphasis. That’ snot to say the title isn’t important, but emphasis and
> importance are two different things. So, T2G seems to be doing the
> opposite of what I’d guess.
>
> John Cardinal
>

> ceto...@gmail.com <mailto:ceto...@gmail.com>


--
Charlie Towne
ceto...@gmail.com