* family pictures in group sheet vs book

[mimwdv]

Hi, I've just joined FHUG, although I've been using Family Historian for many years (and lurking in the forum whenever I get stuck - thank you!)

I'm currently struggling with creating a book from a (large) number of custom family group sheets, one for each ancestor couple. I've been changing a lot of settings in both the book settings and the custom group sheet options, trying to work out what layout I like best.

As part of that I've been changing the number and order of the family photos (as opposed to individual photos), but the changes aren't being reflected in my book for the one group sheet that has multiple family photos (all the rest only have one family photo each). It shows the same two photos in the same order no matter what I do. I've tried:

1 going to edit book>selecting the relevant group sheet, settings, and increasing the # of photos to 4, and refreshing the book. Nothing, it insists on keeping the two photos it has, not increasing it to 4.
2. changing the order of the photos in the family media window, and refreshing the book. Nope, it keeps the two it was using initially in the initial order.
3. deleting the group sheet for that family from the book, refreshing the book, changing the number of photos in the group sheet by generating it on its own rather than part of a book (that works fine), and then adding the group sheet back in to the book again for that same couple and refreshing the book. Nope. Still the same 2 images.
4. closing the book and regenerating it.
5. closing family historian and rebooting it and then regenerating the book.

None of it seems to make a difference, I still just get those same two images.

What DOES work is creating a new book with that same custom group sheet for that same ancestor in it. That book then respects the changes I'm making every time, changing number of images, respecting the order of the images, etc.

I don't know whether I've maybe hit some sort of internal size limit - this book is huge (currently 800+ pages with 153 group sheets and a LOT of source images (far fewer individual or family images). Before some recent editing of sources and source media and changing the size/layout of those (which the book respects perfectly) it was running almost 1,100 pages.

Is there some way I can salvage my original book and make it respect my changes? I'm hoping starting the book from scratch isn't my only option - it's going to be a lot of work to recreate it.

[tatewise]

Welcome to the FHUG.

That is an annoying problem and if due to the size of the Book then it will be difficult for anyone else to reproduce.

It seems that the Book > Item Settings for each chapter are independent of each other. So the Item Settings for the Family Group Sheet with multiple images should be unaffected by any other settings.

You refer to a custom Family Group Sheet several times, so presumably you are using the Other Report... option in the Book to insert those chapters.

I guess that with a very large Book it may take some time to refresh every chapter. How long have you waited?

Grabbing at straws, might it be possible that you have two very similar Family records and sometimes you are choosing the wrong one?

If all else fails, report the problem to CP via the Support Ticket System at https://support.calico-pie.com/open.php

[mimwdv]

Hi Mike,

Thanks for your quick response. It looks like I don't have a lot of options. I've sometimes left it sitting for hours after a refresh and it hasn't fixed it, so that doesn't seem to be the solution. And no, sadly I don't have two similar family records, it's definitely not any confusion like that.

I'll open a ticket and see if they can do anything, but meanwhile it looks like I'll have to restart the book as I have a deadline to get it finished. Hopefully now that I have a clearer idea of what I'm aiming for there'll be less futzing with settings and fingers crossed it won't happen again.