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    Exporting Charts from Solar Fire (for import into AstroConnexions via Dropbox)

    July 14th 2016, revised August 4th 2016

    Version of Solar Fire used: Solar Fire Gold, version 8.1.5

    In my opinion, the export routine in SF (Solar Fire) is badly designed and difficult to use. Having said that once configured it is then quite easy to export your charts.

    In this example, I will be selecting the SF Royalty folder and once there selecting a number of SF charts for export. Note that the Rodden Rating cannot be selected.

    Please see this for a preferred alternative:

    Exporting and Importing a Solar Fire SFcht chart file

    The CSV (Comma Separated Values) format that AstroConnexions expects can be seen from this example:

    “Pierre, of Monaco”,”5 Sep 1987″,”2:46″,”-2:00″,”CEDT”,”Monte Carlo”,”Monaco”,”43N45″,”007E25″

    Chart Name, Date of Birth, Time of Birth, Time Zone Value, Time Zone Abbreviation, Place of Birth, Latitude of Birth, Longitude of Birth

     

    Follow the steps shown below:

    Step one. Get the charts you want to export.

    Step two. Select the Royalty folder

    Step three. Select some charts

    Step four. Click the Send/Add button

    Step five. Select the Export Selected Charts…

    The Export Chart Data form opens

    Step six. Click the Edit ASCII… button

    ASCII Format Definitions window - Export Solar Fire charts

    ASCII Format Definitions window – Export Solar Fire chart

     

    Step seven. Select the required fields

    The four steps required (within step seven) are shown by the red arrows

    Step 1 is the most important.

    Ensure that the Fields in each record have exactly the fields as listed. Note that the Zone Time is numeric. All other fields are string (text) fields.

    ASCII Format Definitions window with emphasis - Export Solar Fire charts

     

    Step eight. Getting ready for Exporting. Ensure Chart Points is NOT selected. Ensure that none of the Select types of points are selected.

    Control-click to deselect.

    This is where it can get a bit difficult. SF expects an empty named file to export to, so a named charts should be entered here. And then saved – see next step. If you don’t get this correct SF will freeze here and probably crash, and you’ll have to start again!

    Step nine. Saving the empty file name

    Step ten. Click the export button

    Note pad export list - Export Solar Fire Charts

    Notepad export list – Export Solar Fire Charts

    This what the file should contain

    You can see the exported records by clicking the Export to Clipboard. And pasting into Notepad.

    A reminder of the export format:

    The CSV (Comma Separated Values) format that AstroConnexions expects can be seen from this example:

    “Albert Einstein”,”14 Mar 1879″,”11:30″,-0.666666686534882,””,”Ulm”,”Germany”,”48N24″,”010E00″

    Chart Name, Date of Birth, Time of Birth, Time Zone Value, Time Zone Abbreviation, Place of Birth, Latitude of Birth, Longitude of Birth

     

    in Exporting Solar Fire ChartsSolar Fire