* RecordIDs in reports and diagrams

[philmcleod]

This must have been asked before but I cannot find a topic.
Is there an option to include record IDs of individuals in reports and diagrams to make it easy to index & find a report for an individual when that person is located in a diagram. With many individuals with the same or similar names it would be useful
Thanks
Phil

[tatewise]

In Individual Summary Reports and Family Group Sheets look in Report > Options > Contents tab.
In Main Section/Family Member Main Items scroll down and select Record id then Edit and set Show if not empty.

In all Narrative Reports use Report > Options > Main > Record Ids to add them in [brackets] for every person named.

In Diagrams use Diagram > Options Text tab and Clone a copy of your Text Scheme.
Then use Edit and from Available Items add Record Id to Used Items to add it on its own line.
Alternatively, select the Used Item called Name and click Edit so you can add [=RecordId()] after the name.
i.e. the Template becomes %INDI.NAME% [=RecordId()]

[philmcleod]

Thanks. I presume that to get a simple index of individual names and record ids it is manual editing task of saving the report in rtf and abstracting and editing the index to create a contents sheet.

[tatewise]

If you want an Index to a Report then in Options enable its Index and tick the Include Record Id option.
If you only want people listed then untick the other options.
BTW: That gives you the [RecordId] of each person without having to enable it in the Report itself.

If you want an Index of everyone in your Project then see how_to:customising_record_window_columns|> Customise or Print Records Window Columns and create a Qeury with just the Names and Record Id columns, but you need to decide whether it needs to be in Name order or Record Id or whether you need both.

I presume this is all needed in order to be able to work away from your PC, because otherwise there is no point as the PC has all the cross-references you need.

[philmcleod]

Thanks. I should be able to sort what I want from all these options.
The point of it is to be able to print all my data into volumes and chapters of reports with diagrams to match. one volume for each side of my family with chapters giving reports of various trees of ancestors and descendants. If the diagram of part of a tree has the Record Ids then I want to make a contents list and/or index for each chapter so as you can look at the tree and then easily find a report on that persons life. The whole purpose of my research is to be able to pass it on in a form that can read without a PC and still be read when FH is dead (along with me}

[tatewise]

OK, so you will need a way of selecting the members of just one family branch, which is trickier than it sounds.
Especially so if there are shared common ancestors that connect two branches generations ago.

If you can get everyone you want for one branch in one Diagram, then select all the desired boxes and use Edit> Add to Named List. The objective is to create a Named List for each branch.
The snag is that even an All Relatives Diagram does not always include everyone on the branch you are interested in.

So try the All Pool Relatives Except Partner Ancestors Plugin in Splitting my Wife's tree away from my own (14537) derived from Create Separate FH Project File For Spouse's Family (13549).

Having got your Named Lists you can filter the Query of all Individuals & Record Id by using the Rows tab List tab for each Named List in turn.
BUT if all you need is the Names & Record Id then you can get that direct from the Named Lists without a Query.
Sort the Named List into the required order by Names or Record Id.
Then use Lists > Keep Current List Order and then Publish > Miscellaneous Reports > List Report.
Repeat if you also want the other order.

[philmcleod]

Thanks, I will copy all this advise and I am sure I can work something out.
Yes it is a tremendous task just sorting out what reports are need to avoid too much duplication and make sure all the interesting people are included. Breaking it down into manageable chunks is the answer but Record Ids are essential to see how they link up. Currently estimating about 100 descendants reports for each side of the family with mostly 2 or 3 generations (but direct lines about 15) and grouped into about 10 chapters on each side.
I only have about 3700 people but cannot understand how those people with trees with many more than mine will ever pass the information on to future generations. We cannot rely on FH, Gedcom or even computers being around in 50 years, let alone 200 years
Thanks for help and ideas

[BobWard]

I only have about 3700 people but cannot understand how those people with trees with many more than mine will ever pass the information on to future generations. We cannot rely on FH, Gedcom or even computers being around in 50 years, let alone 200 years
Thanks for help and ideas

Currently, I only have 1,830 people in my FH database. I use the Individual Summary Report option exclusively, so that I can generate all my ancestor's stories by typing information directly into Note boxes for various events, thus bypassing the FH sentence templates that some of the other report options use.

Like you, I plan to pass my family tree data onto my descendants by generating a pdf ISR publication for my entire family tree, and then handing that pdf file over to a commercial printer to have family tree books printed. My only problem is that the pdf file for my entire family tree (both my & my wife's side) is around 10,000 pages. So, I will probably have to break it into at least 2 volumes, one for my wife's family and one for mine.

Hopefully, future technology will allow us to keep our digital databases intact to hand down to descendants. Otherwise, they will have a lot of re-typing and entering of data from the printed books that will be handed down!

[philmcleod]

I thought about individual reports but considered it better if I could get related people grouped together where possible. It also helps if you want reports with full indexes. I am currently running draft reports which I read through and edit where necessary. I also use the note boxes and generally modify the sentence code to include the "note" which is very useful. For example my great x 3 grandfather was in the navy 1796 to 1801 and as I have his service record I have been able to add the interesting story as part of an"occupation" event as well as adding the text of letters that he wrote to the Admiralty after discharge when he continued to work for the Admiralty. A better solution I think than expecting readers to read and interpret the copies of the originals that I got from TNA.
I expect there will be technology that our descendants can use but it will always be a case of regularly updating, transferring and keeping on top of technology changes. What a problem we would have if we wanted to look at digital database produced even 20 years on disks, using Windows 3.11 and MS Access. None of which would work on current PC or with current software versions,
Not sure if you have investigated printing costs but it is very very expensive, so I intend to have just a copy each for our children and other family members can have them if they pay costs.

[tatewise]

I am not saying it would be easy, but it is probably possible to run old Windows 3.11 software today.
See http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/windows-3- ... 64-bit-pc/ for example.
If over those 20 years you have hung on to the Windows 3.11 and MS Access installation CD it should be fairly simple.
(If you have hung on to the data then it makes sense to hang on to the applications too.)
As long as Windows 7/8/10 continue to offer Windows XP compatibility mode then those old 16-bit programs should still work because XP is 32-bit and supports 16-bit software.

You can get a full Index for Individual Summary Reports if you include all the Individual records required in the one report.

[philmcleod]

Understood, but I doubt if the old data could be transferred to FH or anything else current so eventually would be obsolete. In fact I know that small databases I wrote in Access more than 20 years ago (using Access Basic) would not run correctly on later versions of Access as I believe it changed to using VB. I guess for the IT expert many things may be possible in the future but reality tells me our children will not be making update of family history their priority, at least until they retire in 35 years.
It will be interesting but unfortunately I doubt if I will be around then to see how things develop.

[tatewise]

At least the 'core' data can be saved in Gedcom which has stood the test of time for over 21 years, is supported by most genealogy programs, and being a simple plain text file format should be readable for a long time. I know it has its deficiencies and some of the finer details may get lost in the various dialects, but most essential data should survive.

[BobWard]

Mike, a question regarding the Index option for reports. Based on my experimenting with the Index in my ISR publications, it seems that the Index always sorts in alphabetical order. I always include Record IDs in my Index.

I do a lot of cross-referencing with Record ID numbers. As a result, I am thinking about trying to get the Index to sort on ID numbers to make lD look-ups a little easier. Is there a way to get the Index to sort with ascending Record Ids, rather than alphabetical?

I have created my reports with the individual ISR profiles presented in ascending order of Record ID numbers, but the Index still insists on doing an alphabetical listing

[philmcleod]

A further question regarding reports or more specifically Books.
When producing a book is it possible to incorporate pdf & word files as I have a number of records such service records and letters that I want to incorporate into the section regarding an individuals history. Otherwise each Book just becomes a stand alone chapter

[BobWard]

Phil, I will defer to Mike on this, but I think that FH has some limitations on displaying pdf file formats and especially WORD files.

My approach has always been to convert all my media attachments to a jpeg format before attaching them to any profiles in FH. Pretty sure that jpeg will always work with the different report options in FH, but some of the other file formats are less flexible.

I also frequently work on my jpeg media in Photoshop to add enhancements such as color highlights, Record IDs, explanatory notes, etc., before bringing them into FH.

[philmcleod]

I think whilst FH save files in pdf it does not appear to be able in import a pdf into a report or book. The problem I have is that the documents are up to 20 pages each which I would have to print, scan, save as jpg and add every page to Media records before adding to report or book. Possible but tedious.
I may be better off making my own Book by printing off pdf reports from FH plus my pdf records and then adding titles and contents pages as necessary in Word and saving them as pdf. I would then have a Report by printing all my pdf files in the correct order
Maybe there is some other publishing software available that can format multiple pdf files into a book

[PeterR]

IrfanView has an option to automatically convert every page of a PDF to a series of JPG files with _page_nnnn appended to the filename.

[philmcleod]

I have IrfanView Ver 4.25 but can find no way of doing what you suggest. Can you give any more detail

[PeterR]

Options > Multipage images > Extract all pages…

[philmcleod]

What Version of IrfanView are you using as Ver 4.25 has no Multipage Images under Options

[tatewise]

Phew!! - well here goes...

@Bob - The Index in an FH Report is always alphabetical. To get Record Id ordered index use the List Report mentioned earlier with the Named List in Record Id order. It can be appended to the ISR in a Book.

@Phil - As has been discussed many times FH only handles image files (JPG, PNG, GIF, TIF, etc) internally, so only those can be incorporated into Diagrams and Reports. All other file types (PDF, DOCX, MPEG, MP3, etc) can only be handled using an external application.

You can leave Blank Pages in a Book but it is not obvious whether another PDF document could be edited into those pages externally and retain the page numbered footers.

Experiment with how_to:report_content_multimedia_format_layout|> Report Content, Media, Format and Layout Book Free Page Content to see whether a long image of a PDF document would lead to a suitable multi-page 'Chart' in a Book.

See fhugdownloads:contents:irfanview|> Utility ~ IrfanView for details of all the Plugins that are needed for PDF options, etc.

[philmcleod]

Thanks Mike - I can easily create my own books if necessary using multiple FH reports (which will be pdf) interspersed with my other pdf documents, contents pages etc, now I know what can & cannot be done.
Thanks for all help

[PeterR]

IrfanView version 4.42, but I think that option has been there for several previous versions.

[philmcleod]

Thanks. That is not in 4.25 but I can update Irfanview and try it

[tatewise]

As I said, it is the IrfanView Plugins you need.
It is nothing to do with IrfanView Version per se.
Whenever I update the Version I always get the latest Plugins too.
See fhugdownloads:contents:irfanview|> Utility ~ IrfanView.