Diagram Options Dialog: Text Tab

Create a Simple Text Scheme

This section gives an example of how to create a simple text scheme that shows a person’s names, birth, marriage and death details.

1. Create New Scheme

To create a simple text scheme, open the Diagram Options dialog and select the Text Tab. Click on the New button. The Edit Text Scheme dialog appears.

The first thing is to give the new scheme a name. In the Edit Text Scheme dialog, type “My First Text Scheme” into the Scheme Name field (without the quotes) now.

If you pressed OK now, you would have created an empty text scheme. Any diagram that used it would have blank empty boxes. So now let us add some content to the boxes.

2. Add Name

Find Name in the list of Available Items on the left-hand side. Select it and click the button to add it to the list of Items Used on the right. When you do this, the Add Item to Text Scheme dialog appears. Leave Text Alignment as Centred and press OK. The Items Used list now contains one item: Name.

3. Add Other Names (‘Also Known As’)

Now the text scheme has some content. Any diagram that uses it will show one item of text in each box - the person’s name centred within the box. Or to be more accurate, it will show the first recorded name for each person. But there is no limit to the number of names you can record for any given person. To show all other names too, find Name (a.k.a.) in the list of Available Items. Select it and click the button to add it to the list of Items Used on the right. Leave the label as ‘a.k.a.’ (also known as) and the text alignment as Left. Click OK. The Items Used list now has another item: Name (a.k.a.). Although we have only added one item for alternative names, this item will create as many lines as are needed to show all of a person’s alternative names, however many there are.

Now a text box might show something like this, for a person with 3 recorded names:

4. Add Birth

Now find Birth in the list of Available Items and add it in the same way (tip: a fast way to add it is just to double-click on it). This time the Add Item to Text Scheme dialog that appears has more choices. Note that you can specify the number of Instances to add. It is unlikely that you will have more than one birth event recorded for any given person, but if you do, you might as well be able to see them. So leave Instance at All.

Leave Date, Place and Notes ticked as the Information to include. Let us assume that you want the words ‘<no birth details>’ to appear if you have no birth details. Tick ‘No Data’ Text and add ‘<no birth details>’ in the field next to it (if you’d left this blank, you would have got a blank line if there were no birth details). Press OK.

This time two lines were added to the Items Used list:

When you add an item from the Available Items list, you may find that several items get added to the Items Used list. In this case, we get an additional item to show birth notes. This line will be indented by default, so that it is easy to see that it is a note about the birth, and not about anything else.

You also opted to see the birth date and place. These details will be included in the first of the two items.

5. Add Marriage

Now double-click on Marriage in the Available Items list to add that. Accept the defaults and press OK in the Add Item to Text Scheme dialog. You will be asked if you wish to add special lines for the benefit of the ‘One Box Per Marriage’ display option. Click on the More >> button to learn more about this option, and then click on the Yes button. The option to add these special lines only appears when you add a Marriage item to a text scheme.

This time 4 new items have been added to the Items Used list. The last 2 are the special lines just mentioned. The Items Used list should now look like this:

You may not be able to see the full text for these items. If not, resize the Edit Text Scheme dialog to make it bigger (click-and-drag on any edge or corner). And resize the first column of the Items Used list by clicking-and-dragging on the line separating the Item and Box Types column headings.

Family Historian automatically works out where the best place to put marriage information is, given the prevailing Spouse Display Options. So, for example, if you are looking at a Descendant diagram, do not expect marriage details to appear in all boxes necessarily. If you are displaying spouses in their own box, for example, Family Historian will automatically arrange for marriage information to be displayed in the spouse boxes only. You can override the way Family Historian manages this if you wish (see the discussion of Box Types and Conditions in the Edit Text Scheme Item Dialog section).

6. Add Death

Now double-click on Death in the Available Items list. Leave all the defaults and press OK to add it. This will add 3 more lines:

7. Create Text Scheme and View Results So Far

Now press OK. When you do this, the new text scheme you have specified is created and added to the list of text schemes. You should be able to see it in the list of text schemes in the Text tab of the Diagram Options dialog, and it should be selected at this point. Keeping it selected, press the Apply button. The Diagram Window is now using your new text scheme. Confirm that the results are what you would expect. Notice that within the Text tab, My First Text Scheme is showing in the Current Text Scheme box.

8. Modify Scheme and Change Font and Styles

At present, all the lines in the text boxes are in the same colour and font. We will now make changes to improve the look. Assuming that you are still in the Text tab of the Diagram Options dialog, and My First Text Scheme is still selected, click on the Edit button. This opens the Edit Text Scheme dialog again. This time instead of creating a new text scheme you are modifying an existing one.

If we wished we could add more data items at this point (or any other kind of item); but instead we will modify the font and style of the scheme.

Let us assume that we want the first item - name - in each box to be in a large font and we want its colour to be determined by the sex of the person (e.g. blue for males and red for females).

As Name is the first item, we can set its font details by changing the initial font. So click on the Select button to the right of the Initial Font field, near the top of the Edit Text Scheme dialog. Choose Arial as the font, choose Bold as the Font Style, and set the size to 12. Notice that the Allow Colour Override box is ticked. Leave this ticked, leave the font colour as black, and press OK.

The Initial Font will apply throughout the text scheme until a font change item is encountered. We want to use these font details for the first item only – that is, Name. So we need to add a font change immediately after the Name item. Double-click now on <Font change (style, text colour etc)> in the Available Items list. When you do this, the Font dialog will appear again. This time select Arial, Regular 8 at the font type, style and size. Make sure that Allow Colour Override is unticked this time (it should be unticked by default). Choose Green as the colour, and press OK. The font change items is added to the end of the items in the Items Used list. Make sure that it is selected and click on the Move Up arrow button until it is positioned second in the list, just after the Name field, and before the Name (a.k.a.) field.

As the Allow Colour Override box was unchecked for this font, all lines in the text box except the Name field will always be green. The colour of the Name field however will be black unless it is overridden. You can override that colour (in the Boxes tab of the Diagram Options dialog), and specify that you want the colour of these lines to be determined by some condition (e.g. in the example mentioned, the sex of the Individual concerned). See the Boxes tab for how to do that.

9. Add Vertical Gap

To make the Name stand out a little from the other details, we will now add a little extra spacing between it and the other fields. Double-click on <Vertical Gap> in the Available Items list. This time no dialog appears. An item labeled <gap> is simply added to the Items Used list. Select this item (if not already selected) and use the Move Up arrow button to move it up to second place - just below the Name item and just after the font change item. By default, the gap is very small (0.06”), but you can change this if you want to (select it and click Edit).

10. Picture Marker

A final consideration is pictures. You can specify in the Pictures tab of the Diagram Options dialog whether or not you want pictures to display; and if so, whether you want them to the side of the text or within the text. When you choose the Within the Text option, Family Historian has to decide where the pictures should go. If there were no Picture Marker in the current text scheme, Family Historian would actually place the picture below all the available text. But you may prefer it to go elsewhere. In this example, we will place the picture marker just below the Name field.

Double-click on the <Picture Marker> item in the Available Items list to add it to the Items Used list, and then use the Move Up arrow to move the <Picture Marker> to just below the Name field.

The Picture Marker has no effect if pictures are not displayed, or if they are displayed to the side of the text.

11. Save Changes and View Results

If you have followed all these steps, the Items Used list should now look like this:

Now press OK. When you do this, the changes you have made to the new text scheme are applied. If the scheme you were editing was the one currently being used in the Diagram Window you should be able to see the changes you made instantly reflected in the Diagram Window. Check these changes now and confirm that the results are what you would expect. At this point, the colour of the Name may or may not depend on the sex, and even if it does, it probably will not be blue for males and red for females. The colour of the Name field will depend on what conditions (if any) you have associated with the Text Colour feature in the Boxes tab. However, the Name field should in any case be in bold, and should be larger than the other text in the box, all of which should be green.

Tip: The best way to learn how to create text schemes is to experiment. And the best way to do that is to pick a diagram that contains a good set of people, zoomed in enough so that you can read the text. As soon as you have created your text scheme, even before you have added much detail to it, save it and use the Apply button in the Text tab of the Diagram Options dialog to make it the current scheme. Then move the Diagram Options dialog to one side, and edit the scheme. As you make changes you can press the Apply button within the Edit Text Scheme dialog itself to instantly see the results of your changes reflected in the Diagram Window. Using this approach you can incrementally add features to your text scheme and see at once what the effect is. However, be aware that unless you specify otherwise in the text scheme, you do not usually see anything for an item where there is no data. For example, if you add baptism details (and don’t specify any ‘No Data’ Text), do not be surprised if there is no difference in the Diagram Window if none of the people in the diagram have any recorded baptism events.