Terry Reigel

Thanks to all- I was using the wrong key.

You're welcome.

On a general note how useful are split memos, citations, etc ? Is there any guidance as to most appropriate usuage?

I used to use split memos to provide memo text for Witnesses, but now that the Witness memo is available for this purpose, don't need it for that. So now use it only rarely for complex tags with complicated events. I don't think I have any tag type with a split memo in the default sentence. Rather, I use it only for tags that I customize with a local sentence for special purposes.

On the other hand, I use split CDs all the time. It helps when you want to use more generic sources but still get the "proper" format in endnotes. For some examples see my articles on split CDs.

Your copy and paste of the memo text helped...

The problem is the character you are using for the bars - you are using a letter "L" - the character you need to use is the bar character, which appears in different places, but on many keyboards is above the \ character, either above or below the enter key. On the key it ususally is shown with a break in the middle, like two hyphens arranged vertically.

There should be no space between the two bars.

You're welcome.

I can't tell from our post where you are using the variables and bars. In the Memo field, you create the segments by dividing the segments with the double bar:

this is the first segment||this is the second||this is the third

In the sentence you use the variables [M1], [M2], [M3], etc. So your sentence might read like:

[P] went [M1] on <[D]> <[M2]><[L]> <[M3]>

if you wanted three segments for example.

I'd like to e-mail a simple list of 3-400 hundred "relatives" with very rough birth/death, names and siblings data so that it can be corrected by family members who (to be unkind) are just about computer literate. Word OK, Excel - just about!

Can anyone suggest how to send a simple list  (report? - which one would you suggest?) that is easily readable and editable, and then get that back into my TMG easily?

You could use something like a Family Group sheet, with the options "BMDB events when missing," "Blanks for missing data," and "Space for unknown children" checked. You could send the reports to Word, and e-mail that. But if they are truly computer uncomfortable, detaching, editing, and re-attaching the files will be a problem.

I'd think you might be better off printing it as a Text file and copying it into the body of an e-mail. That's obviously a big challenge for 3-400 relatives, but I'd think your chance of getting responses are much better because they could click Reply and add the changes.

(btw is it possible to read this forum in a newsgroup reader like Outlook Express?)

Not that I know of, but you might want to check out the TMG list on RootsWeb - TMG-L. It's a conventional e-mail list, and has lots of experienced users actively responding. In my view, it's a better forum for "what's the best way to..." type questions do to the wider base of active users. Details are here.

Assuming you are trying to build the ToC in MS Word, there is an option in Word that you need to change. Here's how:

- Use the Insert > Indexes and Tables menu to open the Indexes and Tables screen, then go to the Table of Contents tab.

- Click the Options button, and on the screen that opens, at the bottom, check the "Table entry fields" box. Note that Word resets this option, so you need to do this each time you create another ToC.

- OK out and your ToC will be built where you had the cursor in the text.

There are a couple of places that might go wrong here.

First, in the "Print to" box of the report definition, the file type should be one of the "Word for Windows.." options in order to create a report in Word format. If not, fix that.

Next, in the file name box below that, the file name should end in .DOC -- this is what tells Windows it's a Word file. If not, fix that.

If those are all right, the file being created is actually a Word file, but Windows is opening it in the wrong application (TMG creates the file, then tells Windows to open it, and Windows decides what the correct application is.) To test, open Word manually, find the file, and open it in Word. It should do this just fine.

If so, the problem is that Windows has the wrong application associated with the ".DOC" file extension. You will have to fix that in Windows, not in TMG. Do that by opening Windows Explorer, and on the Tools Menu choose Folder Options. On that screen, go to the File Types tab, and scroll down the list to find the DOC file type. The difficulty is that in Windows98 they are listed by a name of the application, rather than the extension, so it may take some hunting to find it. Clicking on each one will cause the extension for that file type to appear in the area below the list.

Once you find the DOC file type, click the Edit button, and then click on Open in the list of operations below. Then click Edit again, and you will see the name of the program that Windows is using to open this file type. It should be Winword.exe, but apparently is not. To fix it, click the Browse button and navigate to find the Word file.

Sorry this is so complex - this has all gotten easier in WindowsXP. Get back if you have difficulty with the proceedure.

For some reason, the problem described disappeared as suddenly as it came. The day after upgrading to v6.05 the filters worked OK.

Sorry for bothering you.

Good to hear it's somehow fixed.

But, changing the language to English2 does not change the date format, only the change of the Preferences does this. As far as I understand can the date format not be changed by editing / customizing the language. Or am I wrong?

Changing Language does not have any impact on the date format - that's controlled by the Preferences setting, as you discovered. If you choose a date format in which the months are in alpha, rather than in numbers, you can edit the alpha text for the months in Languages. Likewise, if you specify that days of the week are to be included, those can be edited in Languages. But so far as I know, you cannot change any other aspect of date formats in Languages.

Thanks Terry,

You're welcome, Buzz.

Would selecting the Non-primary names (Radio button at bottom) produce the desired result.

The filter will produce the same number of people in any case. But since the Project Explorer is actually a list of names, not a list of people, you will get a different number of names depending on which types of names you specify with the radio buttons.

However, but in TMG v6.05 (just updated) the result is 0, even if the number of tags in the filter is > 1.

In v6.04 the result was all people. I guess that you are using 6.04.

I get all people in 6.05.000 as well. I don't understand why you are getting a different result.

I know, but I don't want to transfer the data itself, but the selection made by the Focus Group. This is simular to saving a Filter and sending it to a co-researcher.

Thanks, Arman. Now I understand. No, you can't currently do that.

However, it would have limited utility. The Focus Group necessarily is a list of ID#'s, since that is the only way to reliably identify persons. So it could only be used by someone with the exact same people with the same ID's. For practical purposes, that means they have a copy of the same project.

The FG is currently saved as part of the set of data tables that make up the project. So if you send someone a backup, they get the saved FGs. But there is no easy way to "refresh" with new FGs unless the recipient has kept the data set locked, which is generally not a viable approach.

This is the occupation tag:

 

[P]   || [P]

The reason the occupation doesn't show is that it's not included in the Sentence. Normally the occupation is written in the Memo field. So the Sentence should be:

[P] [M] || [P] [M]

The standard Occupation tag also include the date, so if you wanted that, it would be:

[P] [M] || [P] [M]

Thanks Terry. I've used F3 and CTRL +F3 but never F2.

You're welcome, Jeff.

I "Guess" I am alright, as I open a tag (new or existing), hit F4 then hit F3.

What you are doing is fine.

I don't know of any other way to add a citation besides using the (+) or hitting F4.

Where would one find the "citation Field"?

On the Tag entry screen, at the bottom, there is a list of citations. That's the "citation field" Jim is talking about. If you click there, then press F3, the most recently used citation is created in that tag. It's not a particularly good way of entering citations, as it enters only the most recent citation, with only the source number and CD entry - no sureties, Citation Memo, or Reference field entries. Still, if that's all you want, it works. Trouble is, with this bug in certain cases it also deletes another citation in a different tag, so should be avoided until an update with a fix is released.

Click in the field for lowest level that you want to recall (Detail, City, etc.) and press F2. That opens a list of places starting at that level. Type a few letters of the address, and the list will search to the desired area. Select the one you want, and that level and all higher ones will be populated.

Note that this system allows you to fill in one level, say Detail, then move to the next level and search for previously entered values at that and higher levels. Thus you can recall only part of a place entry.

If you are entering the same place values successively, you can also use F3 to recall the most recent 15 entries in each field. The F3 (Repeat) function works field-by-field, not for that and higher levels like the F2 (Search) function.

Well, you would tell it of course.

Individually, for each person?

In my case it would add it to the "Note" tag which is attached to

the name of the person.

Tags, Note or otherwise, cannot be attached to name tags. Are you talking about the Memo field in the Name tag? If so, before doing that, examine how Name Memo fields are output. I'd think that's unlikely to give satisfactory output.

BTW, saying you want the data added to the name tag doesn't help - which name tag? A person can have any number of name tags.

No, I do mean the possibility to save the focus group data in a separate file in order to exchange it with others (e.g. working on a project replica).

You can do that now. Once you have gotten everyone into the Focus Group, use File > Export to export everyone in the FG to a GEDCOM or to other file formats. If you want to save them as a TMG project, instead use the secondary output of the List of People report to create a new Project. Either can use the FG to identify the persons to be included.

In this particular case, however, I could do the job with a global change to simply append the memo field of Occupation to the memo field of Notes. But it would be better if I could use a fiilter on the action so I would only operate on what is equivalent to a everyone in filtered Search list, or even just selected people in such a list.

If there were such a feature, how would the program know which Note tag to move the data to, since each person can have a virtually unlimited number of note tags?

Q1. My other question is why won't it allow me to update from the correct directory as the program closes when I attempt to do so?

What exactly happens when you try to check for update? Are you doing this by using the Help > Check for update command? The first thing it does is close TMG.

Q2. If this is so (your response TY) is there a way that a change can be made to allow me to use it on my other user name and download updates?

So far as I know, you cannot move a program installation from one user to another.

Q3. Or is the only solution available to backup my date and reload the program?

You don't have to back up your data, though I would just to be extra safe. But uninstalling will not remove the data.

You can install TMG for each user on the machine, plus for "all users." The latter is the default, and unless you have some reason to restrict access, I'd use that. If you have more than one installation, each has to be in a separate folder. If you uninstall the current installation, you can install back to the same folder if you want.

If I don't demand that

adjacent multiple citations appear in alphabetical order, TMG may be

or may not be able to do it all by itself.

TMG allows you to sort the citations as you please.

By the way ... the way you do it on your web site is certainly a

much better and more standard way than the way TMG does it by default! 

In all the scientific fields I use (Chemistry and molecular genetics ....

the latter, of course, having become vital to my genealogy since

the advent of DNA testing among my Clan) some method

similar to what you describe or what I describe are standard.

Not more standard in genealogy - TMG's method is generally in agreement with recognized style guides for genealogy. However, TMG's beauty is the ability to customize to an amazing degree, which should get you at least close to what you have in mind.

Can TMG do anything like this?

Sure. Change the Full Footnote and Short footnote templates to output only the abbrevation for the source and the citation detail. Then format the bibliography template to produce the source description the way you like it, and add a bibliography to the report. You will probably have to edit the report a tad to get the "References" phrase instead of the standard "Bibliography" label if that's important to you, though I suspect you could get even that by using a custom language.

There's a description of a somewhat similar idea on my website.

What is it that you want to do with Endnote that you can't do with TMG's source functions?

I don't create a marriage tag but in my report preferences I check the option "birth, marriage, death when missing" because I like to have the blanks printed so I can fill them in when I find additional information.  This results in a blank being printed for a marriage when I know there wasn't one.  Common sense tells me that when I check this option I will always get the marriage blank but I was just wondering if there is a way around it.

Well, no, I don't think there's a way to tell it to print blanks for marriage and then have them not print. <_>

I can think of two solutions:

1. Send the report to a word processor, and remove that line.

2. Enter something like "Were not married" as the date in a marriage group tag, so it will be correct in the FGS. Don't know that would be acceptable to pass around to family though.