How do I Generate Reports for my Children?

If you are having difficulty using iFamily for Leopard.
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Keith Wilson
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How do I Generate Reports for my Children?

Post by Keith Wilson » Fri May 02, 2008 8:14 pm

Originally posted by BobW

Ok, I think I got things going fairly good. Now my kids want to see what I've put together. So, how do I do it? I think I would like to make a book. Print most everything, tree, photos and the text. It seams to me that I would need to highlight every person, (100+) one at a time to create the book, but, doing that eliminates allot. I would love to see what all of you are doing. Don't tell me to go to LULU, that means nothing. Explain it as if I were a novice at this. By the way, I have the Mac, they have a PC.

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Keith Wilson
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How do I Generate Reports for my Children?

Post by Keith Wilson » Sat May 03, 2008 4:39 am

BobW wrote:Ok, I think I got things going fairly good. Now my kids want to see what I've put together. So, how do I do it? I think I would like to make a book. Print most everything, tree, photos and the text. It seams to me that I would need to highlight every person, (100+) one at a time to create the book, but, doing that eliminates allot. I would love to see what all of you are doing. Don't tell me to go to LULU, that means nothing. Explain it as if I were a novice at this. By the way, I have the Mac, they have a PC.
Hi Bob

There are alternative ways of generating what you want, all of which may be read on any computer running the Mac, Windows, Linux or Unix operating system.

The reports from iFamily for Tiger are generated as:
  • Rich Text Format (RTF) - which may be read using any word processor (almost any computer).
  • Rich Text Format Directory (RTFD) - which can only be read on a Mac
  • Portable Document Format (PDF) which may be read using Apple's Preview or by Adobe Reader (almost any computer)
  • Hyper-Text Markup Language (HTML) - which may be read by any web browser (almost any computer).
I will concentrate on your aim - which is to create something for each of your children.

Ancestors Reports - Rich Text Format

You could create a separate Ancestors Report for for each of your children but if you have a lot of them then it may be easier to do one for yourself and another for your wife as follows:
  • Make yourself the Focal Person (numero uno) of the Context Diagram in the top half of the main window.
  • Select menu option Reports - Ancestors...
  • Leave all of the default settings as is, with Generations = 100, but since this is for your children then also select Include Births of Living People.
  • Make sure that you choose RTF (not RTFD) if you are sending the report to someone using a PC - you will need to select a word processor such as MS Word or NeoOffice so that images are embedded in the RTF file rather than attached to an RTFD file.
  • Press the Generate button
  • Review the report - it is in folder called iFamilyForTigerData / Reports.
  • Repeat the above for your wife to generate another report for your wife's (wives') ancestors.
  • Send an email to each of your children and attach the reports for yourself and for your wife.
Ancestors Diagram - PDF Format
  • Make your eldest child the Focal Person of the Context Diagram
  • Press the Ancestors (A) button on the toolbar.
  • Activate the button labelled Customise Defaults in the lower RH corner of the dialog.
    • Click the Factory Defaults button.
    • Select the Notes option.
    • Deselect the scissors next to the Notes so that all Personal Notes are shown - else they will be truncated at 250 characters.
    • Increase Generations to 20 or more so that all your ancestors are included.
    • Select Display Root Person's Siblings - this diagram is now suitable to send to any of your children.
    • Close the Customise Defaults dialog.
  • In the Toolbar
    • Adjust the Width button so that the diagram looks best.
    • Select Scrunched, Horizontal and Thumbnails.
    • Deselect Cascaded, Truncate, Name Only and Size To Window Width.
  • Press the button labelled Save As PDF
  • Review the report in the Preview application.
  • Send the PDF file to your children. If you are using Leopard you can use menu option File - Mail Document. If you are using Tiger then you will have to create an email and attach the PDF file to it.
To Generate Everything as HTML
  • Make yourself the Focal Person of the Context Diagram.
  • Use menu option Reports - Publish HTML Web Pages - Generate HTML
  • In the HTML Options panel:
    • Click the button labelled Defaults and in addition:
    • Select Ancestors Tables
    • Select Picture of Each Child
    • Select Include All Pictures of Each Focal Person
    • Select Include All Original Pictures
    • Select All Near Relatives (as a Table)
    • Deselect Exclude Living People
    • Select Random Background Colours
    • Close the HTML Options dialog
  • Drag the bottom RH corner of the dialog so you can see as much as possible of the web page Preview.
  • At the top of the dialog change the Width to be 700 - some browsers on some screens may not like 800 pixels wide.
  • Set Ancestors value to 3
  • Set JPEG quality to 25%
  • Set the Gradient to 0.4
  • Set the Kinship to 0 - so that everyone will be included when you Generate.
  • Press Generate All HTML Files.
  • Press Close and when asked press Save.
  • The Report has now been saved in folder called iFamilyForTigerData /Reports. You can review it using your default web browser.
To distribute the HTML Web Pages to your Children
  • Insert a CD - if the report is very large you may need to use a DVD.
  • Using Finder - drag the folder called iFamilyForTigerData / Reports / BobW-WebPages-xx onto your CD.
  • If you generated RTF or PDF files you can also add these to your CD
  • Burn the CD - test it with your own browser and then burn another CD for each of your other children.
  • Your children can now use their web browser (any) to read the CD, They can start by loading the Index file or at any other HTML file on the CD.
  • Navigation - Anything in the HTML web pages that is BLUE is a hyper-link and may be used for navigation in any web browser. The blue names in the context diagram may also be clicked to navigate.
If you have a web site then do NOT upload web pages that contain information about living or recently dead people.
I hope that the above answers your question. If not then please let me know. I have attached an image of the options that I would select for the HTML options.


Keith

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Keith Wilson
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How do I Generate Reports for my Children?

Post by Keith Wilson » Sat May 03, 2008 4:56 pm

Originally posted by BobW

This will work great. Thanks

mtpaper
Posts: 31
Joined: Sun Oct 19, 2008 5:42 am
Location: Rochester, NY

Post by mtpaper » Tue Oct 21, 2008 2:10 pm

This is a wonderfully presentation of keeping things focused and simple for giving info to others - thank you.

For years I have been working towards the following 2 goals:
- distribution as an interactive digital interface - iFamily's HTML reports take care of this better than I ever dreamed possible
- hard copy presentation of the data; iFamily's reports are wonderful for this. My chapters are based on: Who, When, and Where

Who: I want to use page-per-person - just as generated by iFamily's->Report->Select Person Only. Is there any workaround to generate this report for more than one person? (I'll also include the traditional Ancestor/Descendant trees, but they're so awkward in print form; I may also include Family Groups, but I prefer the Page Per Person)

When: I've written to you off-list about generating a report from iFamily's Event->Date

Where: I'm delighted to use iFamily's Event->Place report (I find this useful since my aunt refers to an event as happening "when we lived at 234 Smith Street" - without a date. Since I can use iFamily's report, I can easily determine that it was about 1937

So, my question is:
Is there a workaround for getting the Page Per Person report for more than one person at a time? I'd gladly have the report for all 1000 people in my database if that's necessary (altho it would be peachy-keen if you could use the same Selection Criteria that you have at the top of People->Index) And, I guess I'd like some options on the sort order (my preference is iFamily's internal reference number, or by First name, or last name.... I'll generate a CSV file from iFamily->People->Index to use as a table of contents)

Thank you!
Marion in NY

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Keith Wilson
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Post by Keith Wilson » Tue Oct 21, 2008 4:02 pm

mtpaper wrote:This is a wonderfully presentation of keeping things focused and simple for giving info to others - thank you.

......

So, my question is:
Is there a workaround for getting the Page Per Person report for more than one person at a time? I'd gladly have the report for all 1000 people in my database if that's necessary (altho it would be peachy-keen if you could use the same Selection Criteria that you have at the top of People->Index) And, I guess I'd like some options on the sort order (my preference is iFamily's internal reference number, or by First name, or last name.... I'll generate a CSV file from iFamily->People->Index to use as a table of contents)

Thank you!
Each HTML web pages provides a one page per person report - and can be burnt onto a CD with the same info, This saves on paper - so it is more environmentally friendly - unless you are worried that that the CD probably started its life in an oil well and that stuff looks like it is running out too.

Keith

mtpaper
Posts: 31
Joined: Sun Oct 19, 2008 5:42 am
Location: Rochester, NY

Post by mtpaper » Tue Oct 21, 2008 5:26 pm

I've been playing and learning

There are 3 ways that I see to print an individual's info, each with pros and cons, depending on your eyes and needs

1. from their generated HTML files
2. from Report->Select
3. Person:Story (same as option 2, but includes the story)

For my needs, I'll go with Option 2 or 3, and print each person individually; it takes much less paper than Option 1

As much as I'm oriented to computers, and like things to be digital, many of my relatives prefer sitting with a book and reading thru the info. Also, for safety, I like having hardcopy of the information.

EDIT: A difference between Option 2 and 3... In Option 2 I can append event notes to the event OR have them as EndNotes. In Option 3, I can have event notes as EndNotes, or not at all.... I would like to have the ability, in both options, to have them append to the event OR have them as Endnotes OR not have them at all.... At any rate, I'd like the options in both places to be the same.
Marion in NY

Haynes
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Joined: Thu Mar 19, 2009 11:18 am

Reports that include all images for selected person(s)

Post by Haynes » Tue Aug 18, 2009 11:29 pm

As a back-up mechanism in case I get hit by a bus, I want to output everything from iFamily to an electronic file that another family member might be able to get some use from after I&#39m gone.

Having read Keith&#39s explanation below, and playing around with the various reporting options in iFamily for Leopard, I&#39m unable to find a report that includes all images for one or more selected individuals.

The RTF and PDF approaches let me select the desired individuals, but seem to provide only the default image for each of those individuals.

The GEDCOM approach also lets me select the desired individuals, but doesn&#39t include any images (only the links to all of them for each selected individual).

The HTML approach provides all the images, but provides more individuals than desired.

I have a feeling I&#39m overlooking something. What am I doing wrong? Thanks.

Haynes

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