5.6: Exporting Games

This section explains how to export games from a database to a file in an external format such as PGN or HTML. Copying games in ChessDB from one open database to another was already explained in section 1.4.

Export games(s)

You can use commands under the Tools to export the current game or all games in the current filter to a text file.

Three text file formats are available: PGN (portable game notation), HTML (for web pages) and LaTeX (a popular typesetting system).

When exporting, you can choose to create a new file, or add the games to an existing file.

Diagrams

When exporting in HTML or LaTeX format, ChessDB will automatically add a diagram wherever a diagram nag ("D") or a comment that starts with the character "#" appears in the game.

Null moves in PGN Export

ChessDB allows null moves to be stored in games, as they can be helpful when annotating games using variations. However, the PGN standard has no null move concept. So if you export ChessDB games with null moves to a PGN file, other PGN-reading software will not be able to read the null moves.

To solve this problem, ChessDB provides an extra option, Convert null moves to comments, when exporting games in PGN format. If you want to create a PGN file that other software can use, turn this option on and variations containing null moves will be converted to comments. However, if you want to create a PGN file that can be imported back into ChessDB later with null moves preserved, leave the option off.

HTML Export

ChessDB can export games to an HTML file. For diagrams to appear, you will need the bitmaps (distributed with ChessDB in the directory "bitmaps/") to be in a subdirectory bitmaps/ under the directory where the HTML file is in.

LaTeX Export

ChessDB can export games to a LaTeX file. Games be printed two columns to a page and moves are in figurine algebraic notation.

If you would like to contribute to the tutorial or see anything that should be updated, corrected or improved, please contact David Kirkby. But please note David only speaks English.


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This page was last modified: September 16, 2007. 10:41:41 am GMT