Journal Report - MS Word Files Won't Open

[Morbius 0]

I am using V7.0, and have been experiencing a problem trying to open MS Word files created with the Journal Report. I suspect the problem has to do with file size. I have set the report to create a separate file for each generation, and run the report (there are 11 generations and over 14,000 descendants, and a very large number of endnotes). The files take quite a while to generate (it seems about 45 minutes, but I haven't time it), but the files are created as MS Word / Window V6.x files. I can open some of the files (earliest and latest generations), but the larger files (the cutoff seems to be about 2meg) will not open. I get an error message, that they may be scrambled.

 

The report works fine with progenators with fewer descendants (11 generations and 2500 descendants worked), but with this one line, I cannot open the middle (largest) generations. I have tried different fonts, and different versions of MS Word, but the result is the same.

 

I have photographs in the database, but do not export them for this reportl; only text is generated by the report.

 

I am considering breaking the descendants of the original proginator into four or five different lines, and running a separate report for each generation, but wasn't sure I could merge all the data back into a single (though very large) file. I have tried to cut the number of endnotes, but the only way I could think of was to up to Surety Threshold to 2 or 3 (I have it sent to include blank surety, as not all tag are yet sourced, a left over from an earlier program), but that doesn't reduce the number of footnotes; as I understand it adjuting that setting would elminate the tags with lower surety values.

 

I would like to end up with a single MS Word file for the whole line. I have accomplished this in previous years using the one file per generation setting, and merging the generations. Last year I ended up with a 39.6meg file, which was a little slow to work with, but I managed.

 

I seemed to have crossed some unidentified threshhold, and was hoping others in this forum would have some ideas.

[Terry Reigel 0]

There is an unidentified limit on the number of footnote/endnotes in Word. The usual error message is something totally misleading - something about permissions if I recall correctly. Solutions include fewer generations and Unique Endnotes, neither of which is especially attactive. You might try other Word formats and RTF so see if they will allow you to open the file.

[Morbius 0]

Terry, thanks for the reply. I have been thinking all along, it was just file size, but that didn't realy make sense, as I have opened larger files. I didn't know about the end/note limit, but that does kind of make sense. Probably about half the document, there abouts, is footnots and bibliography. I have been working on thinning them some. Is there a way in TMG V7 to limit the number of footnotes/endnotes for a given citation to 3 or 4?

 

I will try the other formats, and see what happens.

[Michael Hannah 0]

Is there a way in TMG V7 to limit the number of footnotes/endnotes for a given citation to 3 or 4?

Other than the "unique endnotes" that Terry already mentioned which limits to one, I am not aware of a report oriented option to control how often a source is cited. What I normally do to reduce the number of footnotes/endnotes is to cite every appropriate source to an event, but then I "exclude" all citations other than what I consider to be the most definitive or complete sources. For most reports I choose the option to not print excluded information and will not get these citations.

[Terry Reigel 0]

I have been working on thinning them some. Is there a way in TMG V7 to limit the number of footnotes/endnotes for a given citation to 3 or 4?

I think that's a very good idea, but I'm afraid there is no way to do that automatically. I suggest you exclude them, rather than delete them. You can exclude citations from the tag entry screen by right-clicking on them.

 

John Cardinal's TMG Utility can exclude all citations to a specific source, and has an option to exclude them only if there are other citations in the tag. That may be of use if you have some low-quality sources cited that you want to keep only if they are the sole citation for a tag.

 

Other than that, you are left to do it manually. I've been working on that for several years, addressing particular people when I create a report that includes them, or posting them to my website. As I so that, I sort the citations, putting the best ones first, followed by supporting or contridicting sources, then excluded sources. My rule is to limit citations in use to three at most, except in exceptional cases involving conflicting data.