Jump to content
Bafburns

Printing Reports Without Memos

Recommended Posts

As I reported in an earlier Forum posting (“Printing Journal reports without Memos, 3 April, 2009), I am having problems printing reports in TMG v. 7.04 with Memos that are NOT included in the sentence structures for all Tags.

 

My data was successfully converted from Ultimate Family Tree (UFT) using the standard TMG conversion utility. Because of the way my events were structured in UFT, most of my resulting TMG Tags have multiple-part Memos (i.e., M1, M2, M3, etc.). The examples given below illustrate how the Memo fields look in a few typical Tags in my TMG database.

 

As you can see, the last part of a multiple-part Memo contains narrative details providing further, sometimes extensive, information concerning the event described in the Tag. I would like to be able to print TMG reports, especially the Journal Report, excluding these M parts. TMG documentation I have seen indicates that one could do this by first removing the applicable “narrative” M-part from the Tag sentence and then controlling the inclusion of this data in the report by clicking either “None” (exclude this data) or “Embedded” (include the data) on the Memo Tab under Options on the Report Definition Screen.

 

I have tried doing this but I cannot get the Memo parts removed from the sentences to appear in the report, when “Embedded” is clicked on the Memo tab in Report Options.

 

Is there something wrong with the structure of my Tags? Or, do I have to resign myself to leaving these Memo parts in my Tag sentences and so not being able to produce Reports excluding them?

 

Barrie Burns

Kanata ON, Canada

----------------------------

 

TMG SAMPLE TAG MEMOS AND SENTENCES

 

The following examples of TMG Tags will illustrate the structure of my TMG data following conversion from Ultimate Family Tree. Note that in these examples I have added Carriage Returns at the front of the sentences. The problem described above still occurred when there were no carriage Returns specified.

 

Birth Tag

 

||He was born at the family home on Daniel Street. His mother registered the birth on 4 February 1871. His father's occupation was recorded as "Coach Painter Journeyman" on the birth certificate.

By a coincidence, his grandson Barrie Albert Frederick Burns was also born on 3 January in 1939. And so was the Rt. Hon. Clement Atlee, Prime Minister of England in 1883.

 

(NOTE: The first M-part is empty in this example because there was no data in the original UFT record for this field. Other Birth records may contain some information in M1.)

 

Sentence Structure (before removing M2 from the sentence)

 

[:CR:][RF:Child] was born <[D]> <[M1]> <[DETAIL]> <[L]>. <[M2]>

 

Christening Tag

 

Methodist||Daniel Burns was absent for this event, as he had by this time emigrated to the United States.

 

Sentence Structure (before removing M2 from the sentence )

 

[:CR:][P1] was christened <[D]> <[DETAIL]> <[L]>. <[M2].>

 

Census, Customized Tag

 

1891||Census of Canada||By the 1891 Census, he was listed as a farmer, aged 21, living alone in a 1 storey wooden dwelling with 2 rooms. At this time his stepfather Samuel Meneer and his family were still living in Bayfield, Ontario.[CIT:]972:3[:CIT]

 

The Wellwood news local news column in the Carberry News reported on January 8, 1892 that "Mr. F. D. Burns lost a valuable horse last week." The following week, January 15, 1892, the paper reported that a "Mr. T. D. Burns has gone to Ninga to team." If there was a typo in the name, this too may have been Fred Burns.

 

Sentence Structure (before removing M3 from the sentence)

 

[:CR:][P1] was listed as the head of [PP] household in the <[M1]> <[M2]> <[L]>. <[M3]>

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Hi Barrie,

 

I tried a number of tests with various reports. As best I can tell, the options about Memos are designed to only apply to the [M] variable. If you include any split memo specification in your event sentence (e.g. [M0] or [M1]) then TMG assumes that you are taking full control of memo placement for that event tag and does not apply the report Memo option to that event memo. I think this is by design, especially so that the [M0] feature works. So I believe you cannot use this feature in the way that you wish.

 

However, I think I have come up with a work-around that might do what you want, thanks to the new TMG feature to concatenate sentences. :D I created two separate event tags, e.g. two Birth tags, and assigned their Sort Dates to sort immediately following each other. For such an event tag I created a custom role which I called "OptMemo". The first tag would use the normal role and sentences with the memo parts you want to include. The second tag would use the "OptMemo" role whose sentence contains nothing but "[+]" (without the quotes but with the brackets, see Help under Special Sentence Variables). I then put the optional memo text in that second separate tag. Since there are no [M] variables of any kind in that second tag, the report Memo options for Embedded or None work just fine on that memo.

 

With TMG there always seems to be some way to do what you want, just not necessarily what you might think of first. :rolleyes:

 

Hope this gives you ideas.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Dear Michael:

Thanks for your creative and helpful suggestion re Split Memos. I guess the underlying problem with my split memos is that the TMG conversion from UFT did not recreate the Tag data structures I had in UFT, resulting in the splt memos instead of putting the various bits of textual data into their own fields, as they were in UFT.

 

I think for now I will resign myself to not being able to fully control Memos in Reports, and will stay with the TMG split memos rather than creating "OptMemo" type tags for every Tag that has a split memo, which would be a lot of work.

 

Perhaps you would be willing to answer another TMG question that I have on a completely unrelated matter:

 

Is there any way to control the placement of footnote numbers in TMG reports? In my TMG database converetd from UFT, footnote numbers for all citations for a Tag, even those embedded in Memo fields, get grouped at the end of the Tag sentence in narrative reports. This can be problematic, as you no longer see which footnote referred to which part of the Tag. In UFT you could footnote individual data elements and these wpould appear foillowing the elements to which they referred, This made for greater clarity in seeing which source related to what.

 

Please forgive me if this query should be treated as a separate Forum Topic.

 

Once again, many thanks for your help.

 

Barrie

 

----------------------

 

prompt

Hi Barrie,

 

I tried a number of tests with various reports. As best I can tell, the options about Memos are designed to only apply to the [M] variable. If you include any split memo specification in your event sentence (e.g. [M0] or [M1]) then TMG assumes that you are taking full control of memo placement for that event tag and does not apply the report Memo option to that event memo. I think this is by design, especially so that the [M0] feature works. So I believe you cannot use this feature in the way that you wish.

 

However, I think I have come up with a work-around that might do what you want, thanks to the new TMG feature to concatenate sentences. :D I created two separate event tags, e.g. two Birth tags, and assigned their Sort Dates to sort immediately following each other. For such an event tag I created a custom role which I called "OptMemo". The first tag would use the normal role and sentences with the memo parts you want to include. The second tag would use the "OptMemo" role whose sentence contains nothing but "[+]" (without the quotes but with the brackets, see Help under Special Sentence Variables). I then put the optional memo text in that second separate tag. Since there are no [M] variables of any kind in that second tag, the report Memo options for Embedded or None work just fine on that memo.

 

With TMG there always seems to be some way to do what you want, just not necessarily what you might think of first. :rolleyes:

 

Hope this gives you ideas.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Dear Michael:

Thanks for your creative and helpful suggestion re Split Memos. I guess the underlying problem with my split memos is that the TMG conversion from UFT did not recreate the Tag data structures I had in UFT, resulting in the splt memos instead of putting the various bits of textual data into their own fields, as they were in UFT.

 

I think for now I will resign myself to not being able to fully control Memos in Reports, and will stay with the TMG split memos rather than creating "OptMemo" type tags for every Tag that has a split memo, which would be a lot of work.

 

Perhaps you would be willing to answer another TMG question that I have on a completely unrelated matter:

 

Is there any way to control the placement of footnote numbers in TMG reports? In my TMG database converetd from UFT, footnote numbers for all citations for a Tag, even those embedded in Memo fields, get grouped at the end of the Tag sentence in narrative reports. This can be problematic, as you no longer see which footnote referred to which part of the Tag. In UFT you could footnote individual data elements and these wpould appear foillowing the elements to which they referred, This made for greater clarity in seeing which source related to what.

 

Please forgive me if this query should be treated as a separate Forum Topic.

 

Once again, many thanks for your help.

 

Barrie

 

I haven't followed this thread closely but offer the following information on how TMG handles a UFT import...

 

In UFT tags had details A & B fields...these fields do not exist in TMG. Thus conversion from UFT placed data that was in detail A & B fields either in split memo fields or in split Place detail fields depending on the nature of the field in UFT. There are default settings for this in the Import Wizard and the destination can be changed if the default does not meet your needs. The sentence for the tag took this into consideration when building the template so the sentence that appears in TMG should be the same as the sentence that appeared in UFT.

 

Additionally, UFT had text fields for each event as well as an over text field for the individual. The text fields for the events in UFT were placed in the memo field of TMG upon import. If there were already data in split memo fields because of UFT detail A & B field then the event text was placed in the next available split memo field, i.e., if there were detail A & B info place in M1 & M2 fields then the event text was placed in M3. In the Import Wizard you had the option to add the memo field (the part that contained the UFT event text) added to the end of the sentence template.

 

An example...the death tag, converted sentence from UFT reads as follows:

 

[RF:Deceased] died <[M1]> <[D]> <[L]> <[RA:Deceased]>. <[M2].>

 

Detail A (cause of death) from UFT is placed in [M1], Detail B (Death site) is placed in the Place Detail field [D], and the event text is placed in the next split memo field [M2].

 

See correction to the above in message below ([D] is not Place Detail but is date, Place Detail is part of [L])

 

Hope this helps in explaining how the import of UFT data worked...

 

As for you other question concerning the placement of endnote (footnote) numbers, TMG places them all at the end of the sentence like UFT. Some users utilized the Surety fields to indicated what the citation refers to, i.e. the surety fields are 1, 2, D, P, M....Principal 1 and 2, Date, Place, or Memo....

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
An example...the death tag, converted sentence from UFT reads as follows:

 

[RF:Deceased] died .

 

Detail A (cause of death) from UFT is placed in [M1], Detail B (Death site) is placed in the Place Detail field [D], and the event text is placed in the next split memo field [M2].

 

FYI: The correct variable type is:

Date

Location

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
An example...the death tag, converted sentence from UFT reads as follows:

 

[RF:Deceased] died <[M1]> <[D]> <[L]> <[RA:Deceased]>. <[M2].>

 

Detail A (cause of death) from UFT is placed in [M1], Detail B (Death site) is placed in the Place Detail field [D], and the event text is placed in the next split memo field [M2].

 

FYI: The correct variable type is:

<[D]> Date

<[L]> Location

 

Oops, of course you are right, the Detail B is place in the Place Detail field which is not the [D] but prints as part of [L] if it has data in it....[D] is the date field as stated...

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Dear Michael:

Thanks for your creative and helpful suggestion re Split Memos.

You are most welcome, Barrie.

 

Perhaps you would be willing to answer another TMG question that I have on a completely unrelated matter...

Please forgive me if this query should be treated as a separate Forum Topic.

Yes, in future a different question should be a different Forum Topic. Keeping topics separate helps other users find answers to similar questions.

 

Is there any way to control the placement of footnote numbers in TMG reports? ... footnote numbers for all citations for a Tag, even those embedded in Memo fields, get grouped at the end of the Tag sentence in narrative reports.

Yes, you understand TMG correctly. In the past other users have proposed "wishes" for more granularity of footnote reference placement as possible future enhancements to TMG in the hopes that Bob Velke may choose to implement such enhancements. However, that is the way TMG currently works. And Bob never comments on whether or not a wish may or may not appear in a future version.

 

There are two possible features of TMG that could be used as "work arounds" to cause footnote references in different places. First are embedded citations. There are both advantages and disadvantages to using these. For further details see the TMG Help on that topic.

 

Second, is the concatenation of two tags feature ("[+]") I mentioned before. You can construct one tag with some part of the sentence and the footnote references will output at the end of that tag sentence output. You can then have a second concatenated tag sorted to come next in the narrative with its footnote references at the end of its output.

 

It takes a bit of work using either or both of these methods, but you can get the output just about how you want it. However, I know of no other current ways to get footnote references in the middle of sentence output.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

×