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Archiver > TMG > 2007-09 > 1189385132


From: Terry Reigel <>
Subject: Re: [TMG] FW: Program writing works was RE: Mills help
Date: Sun, 9 Sep 2007 20:45:32 -0400
In-Reply-To: <037901c7f33f$59d5c6e0$4985124c@win2000a141573>


On Sun, 9 Sep 2007 19:12:59 -0500, Elizabeth Shown Mills wrote:

> Terry wrote:
>> Really Elizabeth? You would want the genealogy program
>> to get every little bit of layout and formatting to meet
>> the standards of each different publication? The
>> document title, section and sub-section titles all left-
>> justified or centered, bold, italic or not, in the
>> correct font and size? The footnote separator a full
>> width rule, part width, or something else? And on and
>> on?
>
> Ah, Terry. Look at Chris's statement. Second line. Fifth
> word. The expressed request that I agreed with is for
> "elementary" items--not every conceivable manner of
> formatting under the sun, for every journal in existence.

It seems we don't have a common understanding of the term. I thought what I was listing above - justification, font styles, etc. - are elementary. Apparently you mean something else.

Now if it's important to bold the first appearance of a name and not those following, I don't see that as elementary. That's hard to fix in a word processor manually, and I certainly don't know how to write a macro to do it.

>> I would much rather their time be spend on important
>> stuff, like getting the text to flow
>> correctly from multiple tags, with source reference
>> notes in the right places, multiple source citations
>> combined into a single note correctly worded, better
>> tools for including introductory text, and the like. The
>> things that are really an issue when you try to update a
>> document to include new information by re-creating a
>> report from the genealogy program.
>
> Agreed! Totally, passionately, and then some!

Then I think we are more or less on the same wavelength about the sort of things that should be improved.

>> Until all that's done, in my view it's a waste of effort
>> to expect a genealogy program to worry about those
>> little page layout details. Word processor macros do a
>> great job of taking care of them.
>
> Sure. Word processor macros take care of them. But that
> means every time we want to print out something to share
> with someone, we have to do an export and a cleanup that
> will have to be redone the next time and the next and the
> next. For something "elementary," why should we have to?

I really don't understand this point. I've probably only sent a report directly to printer half a dozen times in the 10 years I've used TMG. I always send reports of any significance to a word processor. There's always a thing or two I want to edit for a particular recipient (like the comment that the recipient's hated brother-in-law invested very well). And, I want to fix those things that I think of as elementary - getting the footers as I want them, underlining the "Generation..." headings, putting the endnotes in double columns.

But it's hardly a chore. The report is pre-set to create a Word document. Click Yes to open the file in Word. Click the Macro button on the Word toolbar, and it's done. Its so simple that if I find more than a couple simple data errors (I often do), I fix them in TMG and do it over again.

Terry

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