Descendent Chart question re Spouses

[Roger S 0]

One final (I think) Descendent Chart question re Spouses

 

I now have my much compressed L-R Descendant Chart pretty well prepared . . . . but I have one final question I hope the more experienced forum members can help with.

 

I must say that I am not really happy with the way in which a spouse is handled. To a novice eye it looks like a descendent at first glance and then with it's separate offset box it takes up precious space in both dimensions. I feel sure this criticism must have been aired before. Has anyone got an alternative approach to the display of spouse that I can consider? thanks Roger

[Virginia Blakelock 0]

Both Mike Talbot and I move the spouse under the primary person and delete the spousal connectors. My method (with a video showing the process) is here and an example of Mike's is here

 

On the Chart Style page, it helps to reduce the 'Gap between boxes', making the top one 10 and the bottom 20.

 

There are more tips for one-page charts here.

 

Virginia

[Roger S 0]

Thanks once more Virginia, I do follow up all your tips and find them very useful. I see what you suggest re spouses and that certainly does help. Pity one needs to visit each and every spouse in the chart (in VCF) and fiddle around to accomplish this but it does do the trick. thanks a lot Roger

[Mike Talbot 0]

Thanks once more Virginia, I do follow up all your tips and find them very useful. I see what you suggest re spouses and that certainly does help. Pity one needs to visit each and every spouse in the chart (in VCF) and fiddle around to accomplish this but it does do the trick. thanks a lot Roger

 

Tips:

You can group select all spouses (as Virginia's tutorial instructed), within a generation, and move them by jogging all at once. I like for the spouse box to overlap or at least touch the descendant box (a matter of personal taste). Then you can group select all of those nasty spouse connector lines, within a generation, and delete them once. Then move on to do the same for the next generation, etc.

 

I like to color fill the descendants' boxes and leave the spouse boxes uncolored. To do this, it is best to leave a little horizontal offset of the spouse from the descendant. If you change your mind on the coloring, later, the offset allows group sections for color changes.

 

Some like to generate a large bold single character equal sign (=) and place it between/overlapping each spouse and descendant. It can be rotated 90 degrees, when desired. (generate it once and make and move copies)

 

Enjoy,