Thursday, April 16, 2009

Working in RootsMagic 4 - Post 11: Creating a Relationship Chart

I downloaded the free RootsMagic 4 beta release in early March, and purchased the program on 30 March. I easily uploaded my Family Tree Maker file to it. In this series, I'm looking at different features of RootsMagic 4. I'm not doing a comprehensive review, just looking at features important to me.

Previous posts in this series include:

* Working in RootsMagic 4 - Post 1: Navigation
* Working in RootsMagic 4 - Post 2: Editing Person Data
* Working in RootsMagic 4 - Post 3: Adding a Child to the Family
* Working in RootsMagic 4 - Post 4A: Creating a Pedigree Chart
* Working in RootsMagic 4 - Post 4B: Creating a Pedigree Chart
* Working in RootsMagic 4 - Post 5: Creating a Family Group Sheet
* Working in RootsMagic 4 - Post 6: Creating a Narrative Ancestors Report
* Working in RootsMagic 4 - Post 7: Creating a Narrative Descendants Report
* Working in RootsMagic 4 - Post 8: Creating a Wall Chart
* Working in RootsMagic 4 - Post 9: Creating a Timeline Chart
* Working in RootsMagic 4 - Post 10: Creating a Box Chart

In this post, I'm going to create a Relationship Chart for myself to my cousin Roma in England. In the "Family" View with myself highlighted, I clicked on the "Report" menu item and highlighted the "Charts" option, and then the "Relationship Chart" item:


I clicked on "Relationship Chart" and the "Report Settings" box opened with me as the "First Person." The usual buttons are present - Reset, Layout, fonts and Box Style, and some check boxes:



I wanted to use my cousin, Roma Alexander who lives in England, as the second person, so I clicked the "Second Person" button, and the "RootsMagic Explorer" menu opened. I scrolled down to cousin Roma's entry. I could have started typing "Alexander" and found her entry also. I highlighted Roma and her family information appeared:


I clicked on the Select button and was back to the "Report Settings" menu. I wanted to increase the font size for the text on the charts, so I clicked on the "Fonts" button and increased the font size. There is no option here for text color, which I would really like to have!


I clicked OK and was back to the "Report Settings" menu. I wanted to change the Box Style, so I clicked on the "Box Style" button and the "Border Styles" menu opened. I made the corners round, the box line and shadow red, and the background light green:



I clicked on the OK button, and was back to the "Report Settings" menu. I added a Title to the "Title" box and clicked on the "Generate Report" button.


There are two portrait pages (I could have chosen Landscape in the "Layout" menu) for this Relationship Chart - here they are:



The chart tells me that Roma and I are fourth cousins - the common ancestors are Thomas and Ann (Marshman) Richman of Hilperton, Wiltshire, England.

I really like this chart. It is easy to create, modify, save and/or print.

What would I add? Line weight and color to the lines between boxes; color options for the box text; color and font options for the title; full birth, marriage and death information options in the text; ability to put it all on one page. I know - it's easy to complain and suggest! It's pretty good as it is - I want it better!

The fifth choice in the Reports>Charts menu is "Photo Tree." I don't have any photos loaded in RootsMagic yet, so I cannot show this in a post.

I'll start going thorugh the Reports>Lists options in the next post.

2 comments:

Janet Hovorka said...

Randy,
Like in other programs, when you send this or any of the other charts to www.printmychart.com it comes to us at Generation Maps. You can just send us the .rmc file, no matter how big the chart is, and there are several choices of papers. We even have vinyl now. Thomas MacEntee was asking about placemats--wouldn't that be cool? Whatever you want to do--we can make printing from RootsMagic easy for you.
Janet

bgwiehle said...

Randy,
Does the program always default to the closest relationship when generating this report or does something different occur when the 2 persons are related in multiple ways?