Publication Tools

[knitternut 0]

I currently have FTM v8 and am looking to change to a new program. I am looking for a program that can publish in book form. Can TMG publishing be saved to a portable file and then be taken to a store to print?

 

The FTM I have now cannot. Did not realize this till I had put together a 60+ page book. Also, can word documents be added to the book?

 

Any other info on your publishing features would be great.

 

Thanks

[Terry Reigel 0]

TMG can save reports as either PDF or to various word processor files. If I were to create a book I'd want to send the report to a word processor file, then do whatever editing I wanted, before sending it off for printing. You can get free or low-cost utilities to create a PDF file from your word processor file if it won't do that directly. That's the way I produced my book A Primer for the Master Genealogist.

[knitternut 0]

Okay, not really computer literate. I have microsoft word. So does this mean I could do the whole book then transfer it to microsoft word then transfer it to a portable jump drive so I could take it and get it printed?

 

The book I made on FTM did not print correctly the bios I wrote and had to print them out individually then add them in. A big pain.

 

I have looked over the TMG and it has some great features that I love. The only bad things I have heard about it is that it is hard to learn. I have been doing genealogy for 15 years and I think TMG would be able to handle all the info I would like to add.

[Michael Hannah 0]

I actually don't think TMG is hard to learn, it just takes the realization that it is different that FTM. I would highly recommend either the on-line tutorials by Terry found here or purchasing his new Primer book as great sources for learning TMG. They both have example screen-shots and clear instructions to help you get started.

 

As for your genealogy "book", TMG is designed to give you lots of control over your report output. Many users find the standard TMG defaults produce very nice "books" so you don't have to (learn to) customize unless you want to. Inside TMG you can define a default structure for your bios, as well as tailor individual people's bios if you desire. You then choose which of several types of TMG pre-defined reports you wish to produce, change the report options only if you desire, and then choose what kind of output file TMG will use to create that report. Two of the common output file options are to either produce a Microsoft Word file or directly produce a PDF file. Most of us users produce the Word file so that we can look at the output and "tweak" it a bit if we want. Many of us choose to view the TMG report in Word, decide on the changes we want (whether to the general default structure for everyone or to individual people's bios), make those changes back inside of TMG, then have TMG produce a new version of the report in Word. We keep interating until we get the output we like. I believe you will find that almost all the formatting desired can be done within TMG, with very little if any post-editing needed in Word.

 

Many of us users subscribe to both this Forum as well as the users' e-mail list at TMG-L described here, and most of us TMG users are happy to help you learn and work with TMG.

[knitternut 0]

Thanks for your help. I went throught the tutorial and loved what I saw. Loved all you can do with the program, so much more than any other program I have seen out there.

 

I think I may try the 30 day trial but will have to schedule it when I know I can spend a lot of time working with it.

[Michael Hannah 0]

Glad to help. If you are looking for a program that will do what you want it to do, look no further. I believe TMG can be made to do just about anything you could want in an genealogy program.