Family Historian User Group

Hello

I would be glad of some advice regarding Diagrams (All Relatives).

I am working on a tree which currently contains 421 individuals with 143 families.

The problem is when I print off the entire tree it is of gigantic proportions and impractical to work with. There are many sheets with printed text boxes but also an awful lot of blank sheets.

Is there any way I can condense the size of the tree down a bit using a lot less paper? Perhaps I need to adjust the settings which I am not at all sure about when it comes to re-sizing a tree. After all the work I have put into the tree, I don't want to make a mess of it now!

Thank you so much.

Beth

Beth:

Assuming you are on v5 as indicated in your profile, for an overview of FH's printing and scaling techniques I recommend working through chapter 11 of the "Getting the most from FH 5" book, accessible from the v5 Help Menu.

You may also find chapter 10 useful which explains how to move boxes and branches around - this can help reduce the number of sheets required when printing.

Derek

Even if you shrink the tree, lose the blank sheets and rearrange everything logically (probably impossible) the central problem remains. Can you understand a single diagram with 421 people on it?

I came to the conclusion that I couldn't so gave up trying to produce the things. These days I have a summary pedigree chart showing all the ancestors of the root person and nothing else. Then I tend to have descendant charts from each of those ancestors, possibly cut off after some point.

Yes it's tricky to negotiate from the ancestral pedigree chart key to the detailed ones but the clarity is superior. And you don't need as much Sellotape. ...

If a diagram is to remain easily understood the generations really do need to be aligned if at all possible. I have printed large diagrams in the past and condensed them in two ways. One, by reducing the %scale, but remember it still needs to be readable. Two with families that have large numbers of children you can raise and lower the alignment of alternate children, which can save quite a lot of space.

However it will still be large! I printed the results of a One Name Study for a get-together of the families. I did all the condensing I could but it was still over 7 metres long!

Anne

For my family tree book, I just sent the tree chart pdf file out to a commercial print shop and had it printed on 48" wide roll paper. I then just folded that large print up and stuck it in a packet at the back of my book. When people read the book, they can pull out the tree chart, unfold it and look at the tree.