Menus

This submenu is used for inserting additional diagram elements into an existing diagram. A diagram element could be an entire tree (any kind), a fan chart, a picture, a text box, a line, a rectangle, an arrow, free hand text and more. There is no limit to the number of trees, or any other kind of diagram element, that you can have in a diagram.

When you insert a tree, Family Historian will put the new tree in the centre of the Diagram Window - even if that means that it overlaps an existing tree. It will also automatically enable Moving/Resizing, and set 'Tree' moving as the drag-and-move action. This means that you can immediately click on any box within the tree to move it.

To cancel Moving/Resizing mode, click on (i.e. 'uncheck') Enable Moving/Resizing in the Diagram menu (or the equivalent toolbar button).

The Shape Toolbar (accessible from the Diagram toolbar) provides quick access to all of the above items.  See the Shape Toolbar page for a detailed discussion of all of the various commands on this submenu.

If a given Individual has no duplicate boxes you will be told that no other instances were found.

Tip: You can easily see which boxes are duplicates by enabling Check for Duplicates in the General tab of the Diagram Options dialog.

Tip: A fast way to search for duplicate boxes for a given selected Individual is to press the F3 key instead of using the menu command.

If checking for duplicates was not enabled when you opened the diagram, you can run Check For Duplicates… on the Diagram menu at any time to enable it, and (depending on your current diagram options for duplicates) to hide duplicated branches.

Even if Check for Duplicates is already enabled in Diagram Options, you may still want to use the menu command to hide duplicated branches if you have been clicking on branch expansion buttons to explore trees, and now have a number of duplicated branches.

Tip: Check For Duplicates… is affected by front-to-back ordering of trees. If one tree is layered 'in front of' another (even if it isn't actually positioned in front of it), Family Historian will close duplicated branches in the 'background' tree in preference to closing branches in the 'foreground' tree. So you can control which tree gets its branches closed, by right-clicking on any box in one of the trees, and selecting appropriate commands from the Order submenu.

You cannot hide the root box in a tree, as this would cause the whole tree to be hidden. If you wish to get rid of an entire tree you must delete it. To delete a tree, click on any box in the tree and click on the Delete key. Leave the selection at Delete Selected Diagram Items Only and press OK. Then confirm that you wish to delete the tree.

Tip: A quick way to hide a box is to click on it with the right mouse button and select Hide from the dropdown menu that appears.

To hide hidden boxes again click on Show Hidden Boxes again, to 'untick' it.

Tip: A quick way to unhide a box when Show Hidden Box is enabled is to click on it with the right mouse button and untick Hidden on the dropdown menu that appears.

Hide or show expansion buttons. These are the little circular buttons on branch lines. They are crossed if the branch is hidden. Click on expansion buttons to hide or show tree branches.

Click on this command to fully expand the branch of the selected box, as far as it will go.

Click on this command to close an expanded branch for a selected box. You can also click on an expansion button to do the same thing.

Click on this command to close all branches of all trees in the current diagram, except where boxes are selected.

Each spouse is assigned their own box. Is the best option for displaying information about spouses (and the only one which allows you to view pictures of spouses), but it produces larger diagrams than the other 2 options.

By default, Remarriage boxes are not displayed if spouses are displayed in their own box; however, there is an option to override this if you wish to. See Spouse Display Options in the General tab of the Diagram Options dialog.

This option is not applicable to ancestor boxes.

Spouses are not displayed in separate boxes, nor are Remarriage boxes displayed. This option takes up the least amount of space. Use it when you are not interested in spouse information.

With standard text schemes, no spouse information is displayed when this option is chosen. However, in your own custom text schemes you can show all of a person's spouses if you wish, even if this option is selected. If you do so, you should be aware that there will be no visual indication of which spouse is the parent of which child.

Zoom in.

Tip: A quick alternative is to press the + key on the numeric keypad (or Ctrl+L).

Zoom out.

Tip: A quick alternative is to press the - key on the numeric keypad (or Ctrl+K).

Depending on the tree orientation, this will make all boxes the height of the current tallest box (vertically oriented trees), or make all boxes the width of the current widest box (horizontally oriented trees).

The Autosize state is disabled in all boxes (see Box States below).

Depending on the tree orientation, this will make all boxes in each row the height of the tallest box in that row (vertically oriented trees), or make all boxes in each column the width of the widest box in that column (horizontally oriented trees).

The Autosize state is disabled in all boxes (see Box States below).

Makes all selected boxes the height of the tallest selected box. Only available if at least 2 boxes are selected.

The Autosize state is disabled in the selected boxes (see Box States below).

Makes all selected boxes the height of the smallest selected box. Only available if at least 2 boxes are selected.

The Autosize state is disabled in the selected boxes (see Box States below).

Makes all selected boxes the width of the widest selected box. Only available if at least 2 boxes are selected.

The Autosize state is disabled in the selected boxes (see Box States below).

Makes all selected boxes the width of the narrowest selected box. Only available if at least 2 boxes are selected.

The Autosize state is disabled in the selected boxes (see Box States below).

For all selected boxes which have pictures at the side of the box (left or right), this menu command resizes their pictures to fit the box height. At the same time, the overall width of each box is adjusted to maintain the width of the text area of the box.

If you wish to adjust the height of pictures which are displayed within the text, you should temporarily change Diagram Options to move the pictures to the side of the text, adjust the box size appropriately, use this command to adjust picture size, and then change Diagram Options to move pictures back within the text.

The Autosize state is disabled in the selected boxes (see Box States below).

Set any scale for any diagram.  The default setting (no scaling) is 100%, but you can choose values which are either greater or less than this.

Tip: Diagram scaling can also be adjusted to any value at any time, by updating the value of the Scaling field in the General tab of the Diagram Options Dialog.

Tip: This function does not automatically align page boundaries with row or column boundaries. But this can be done quite easily. To do it, click on 'Show Page Boundaries' - this will display page boundaries as a grid. Click-and-drag on any grid intersection to move the grid, and hence page boundaries. If you press the Ctrl key while doing this, the page boundary will 'snap' to the nearest row or column boundary.

Check this option to open the Movement Control Box to enable moving boxes, branches and trees, and to enable resizing of boxes. When Moving/Resizing is enabled, selected boxes have little white boxes in their corners and sides to show that they are selected, instead of the usual little black boxes. Click-and-drag on any little white box to resize.

Show (or hide) page boundaries. A grid of lines appears. Each filled and used rectangular area marked out by the grid corresponds to a printable page - that is, to a physical sheet of paper that will be printed if you print the whole diagram. A diagram that extends over multiple grid areas will be printed on multiple sheets of paper.

The grid rectangle size is determined by the paper size used by your printer. It will change automatically if you switch to a different paper size in your printer settings (or switch between portrait and landscape mode). To change printer settings, click on Print Setup on the File menu.

To see all printable pages, click on View Whole Diagram after showing page boundaries.

Tip: Click-and-drag with the left mouse on page boundary intersections to move page boundaries.

Tip: Usually you will use the Scaling option on the General tab of the Diagram Options dialog to set the size of a diagram when printed,
but for convenience you can also adjust scaling, and resize a diagram when printed, by clicking-and-dragging with the right mouse on page boundary intersections (it's usually a good idea to pick one at the bottom right of the diagram). When you do this, it appears to adjust the size of pages. But what you are really doing is adjusting the relative size of pages. If the pages are getting smaller relatively (bearing in mind that the physical paper you are printing on does not change) this means really that you are getting less onto each page - i.e. the diagram as it will appear when printed, is getting bigger. You can confirm this by looking at Scaling value. When it is not 100% it is shown in the status bar.

Tip: If you press the Ctrl key while moving page boundaries, they will 'snap' to the nearest row/column boundary. This is especially useful if you have adjusted row/column sizes so that an exact number will fit within each page (see below).

When checked, Family Historian will layout diagrams so that nodes (boxes) do not overlap page boundaries - either at the side or at the top.

Tip: You can specify how near a box can get to a page boundary by setting the Avoid boundaries gap in the More Dimensions dialog, accessible
from the Dimensions tab of the Diagram Options dialog.

This submenu allows you to control the display order, front-to-back, of selected diagram elements. A diagram element is anything that can be inserted into a diagram - such as a picture, text box, line or rectangle. Also, each tree counts as a single diagram element.

To select a tree for the purposes of ordering, simply select any box within the tree.

As well as allowing to change the ordering of diagram elements, this submenu also allows you to group diagram elements into grouped objects, or ungroup them.  Only trees cannot be grouped with other diagram elements.

The Format command can be used with all diagram elements, but it works a little differently depending on whether you are formatting one or more boxes in a tree or one or more other kinds of diagram elements (shapes, lines, pictures, etc).

If you have selected one or more boxes in a tree, the Format command opens the Override Box Features dialog, allowing you to override any aspect of the appearance of the selected boxes.  To select multiple boxes at the same time, see How to Select Multiple Boxes in Diagrams.

If you have selected one or more other kinds of diagram elements, you will be able to change their appearance using the Format dialog, which will have different tabs depending on what kind of diagram elements you are formatting.  See Formatting Diagram Items to learn more.

You cannot simultaneously format both boxes in trees, and other kinds of non-tree diagram elements.

You can mark any nodes (boxes) that you wish to distinguish for any purpose. Marked nodes have a distinctive background colour (configurable using Sundry Colours in Diagram Options).

Tip: An alternative to using Marks is to set Record Flags for Individuals, and specify conditions for box features based on these flags. This gives much greater flexibility than just using Marks. You specify box features in the Boxes tab of the Diagram Options dialog.

Tip: You must be displaying boxes to be able to see which ones are marked. This is controlled from the Boxes tab of the Diagram Options
dialog.