My brother bought Fritz 13 and manually input a 43-move game to a database to email to a friend. But whenever he attaches the file it turns out to be some rubbish 17-move game. He's turned to me as the more computer literate bro for help. I've discovered the file he needs to send should be a cbv file and not the cbh file always shown. I've looked at all the Fritz tuts but I'm still in the dark. Would it be best to change/save the file in PNG format? If that is correct how do you do it without imputting the game again? Thanks

My suggestion would be to simply save the game as a pgn file.  You can then attach that pgn text file to your e-mail or you could open the pgn file with notepad or textpad and then cut and paste the actual text right into the e-mail. 

All chess software can read pgn files, but not all chess software can read cbv and cbh files. 

To do so, choose SAVE GAME AS and then save it as a pgn text file.

PNG format?  Gosh no.  That's a bitmapped image format and you can't save a chess game in that format.  You could save an image of a particular position, I supposed, but I don't see how that would help.

If the game wasn't saved properly, (17 move rubbish game?) it sounds like it might have to be inputted again.  If so, that should only take a minute or two.

Thanks for your advice. PGN files it must be, the png reference was an unfortunate slip of my mind  My bro bought Fritz simply so he could post off his games.

My bro asks: So there is no way of emailing a game that can be received and saved directly to a Fritz database and simply played? He thought that was what Fritz could do, that's why he bought it.

You *could* send a pgn file, but if there were any Fritz-specific special analysis/symbols, that would be lost when it's converted to pgn format.

I just e-mailed myself a Fritz cbv game file using my old Fritz 8 program. I'd think that Fritz 13 could do the same with the same general procedure.

Here's how I did it in Fritz 8 - Save the game to a regular (cbh) database file, then open the database window. Find the game(s) you want to e-mail and select (highlight) them. Right click in the highlighted area, click on "Output", then click on "E-mail selected games". An e-mail box will pop up with the games already attached. All you have to do is address the e-mail and send it.

The recipient just has to save the e-mail attachment to the proper Chessbase folder on his PC and then open the cbv database file with his Fritz program.

I hope your bro enjoys his Fritz!

It's as easy as that! Thanks a million. I have to get in touch with him and put it to the test. Terrific. Just cannot understand why this is not in the help file for goodness sake!

The trick is to learn how to think like a Chessbase programmer. (I know, not always easy to do!) I just hope Chessbase didn't make it more complicated to do, going from version 8 to 13. I hope it works for your brother.

wow, that's good info.  i'm pretty well-versed in fritz and i didn't know that.  :D

Oops did not mean to be so abrupt.

As simple as it seemed no problem at all. Created a database, saved the game AS, selected output... bang, on its way.

All I have to work out now is why severeal othere databases he/I have created in the My Work folder do not show when database is selected.

Fantastic.

Regarding my last query can you offer any advice why previous databases, created through Fritz are no longer shown when the Fritz database icon or menu is selected, yet the databases do exist and can be and opened via Windows. I've also tried using Fritz to analysis one of my brother's games but I am somewhat confused as to the differences/benefits of infinite, full and deep position analysis.

Thanks for reading this and your earlier successful advice. 

About the disappearing databases, it's a mystery to me, unless you've selected the wrong file extension search filter when you're looking in the various folders. I can't be held responsible for any nefarious wizardry that might be occurring inside your computer.

I'm not really a Fritz analysis expert, but in general, infinite analysis is a type of manual mode. You start the infinite analysis, and it continues analyzing whatever position you put on the board until you tell it to stop analyzing. Full analysis is meant for analyzing complete games, and deep position analysis is meant for analyzing a single position.

Thank you. Why can't Fritz explain it so well?