Technophobe requests help with GEDCOM

[Mogsmum]

All my research is currently on Heritage Family Tree Deluxe but I want to transfer it to Family Tree Maker 2005 and I'm told I can do this (easily) if I do it as a GEDCOM file.

Huh?

I've searched GEDCOM exporting on the Heritage 'help' file but sad to say, I didn't actually understand a word of it.   All I wanted was a simple 'click this, do that', instead of which it warned about ANSI, extensions, character sets, temple names, encoded scrapbook items and something called 'PAF 2.x' - what on earth is that, and should I be worried about it?

Can some kind soul please just explain - preferably in non-techy words of one syllable - how to export a GEDCOM?

And, my main concern, 'exporting' will still leave my original Heritage file in tact - won't it?  I fear that, should I lose years of patient research, I may cry. 

[RJ_Paton]

Exporting a Gedcom file will leave your original data intact  so don't worry in that respect.

Although Gedcom has become a standard file format for transferring genealogical information it does have its variants as some programs use non standard additions for holding extra information.
The warnings you are seeing in all likeliehood refer to some of these differences.

If at all unsure, find your main file and make a copy of this (if using a PC right click with the mouse on the file and holding the mouse button down drag the icon to a clear section of space .... release the mouse button and select "copy" from the drop down list that appears.

Work from the copy file and export your gedcom from that

[downside]

PAF = Personal Ancestry File

That refers to the Church of the Latter Day Saints software.  Sometimes you can export a file in that format and it can be imported into the PAF program instead of using a gedcom file.  However, the latest version of PAF is version 5 but there might be backward compatibility.  I think you can actual import PAF files into FTM but you will need to check.

As falkyrn said each program has its own unique features such as scrapbook and temple names and hat information cannot be transferred to another program directly.

So it looks like you may have to manually type in any information that gets lost in translation.  Usually there will be a window with a list of all the items that FTM could not accept or handle after the import process has completed and you will have to work your way through that list to see what went missing.