This has come up before and I’ve never seen a solution. I have used RootsMagic since the first edition and never had a problem like this one. Descendant Charts are simply lines in the center of the page with tiny unreadable boxes/persons. I believe this was also a problem in RM 10. Different settings seem to make little difference. Has anyone been able to print a descendant chart - if so, please describe your settings in detail? Is this anything that RM plans to fix?
first question are you printing directly? or saving as PDF then printing?
Yes I have experienced issues before, and it seems the issue is related to computer and not the RM version – I tested this previously a while back (same db, same RM ver (although I did not think a time to alternate 32 vs 64 bit ver) The issue does seem to clear ‘on its own’.
(not zoomed in top to bottom)
left to right
the other orientations also do work .
Sometimes resetting report might work
I suspect that something somehow messes with settings and that might be cause the issue but resetting does not always work
Yes - have tried saving to pdf - comes out exactly the same. Have done everything you suggested and have tried multiple times after multiple updates, including resetting. Nothing ever changes. All other reports are fine. This report never gets readable or usuable.
The Descendant Chart is one, of a few, that have various issues and niggles that stem from the attempt to present a user interface for previewing the desired output. I have previously encountered and mentioned several different issues in the Publish Chart/List Settings menus. There are definitely some things that are “gotchas”:
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User must realize and remember that clicking the counterclockwise arrow icon (to the right) in the main Settings header DOES NOT reset (to default) ALL settings for the chart/list, but rather only those in the top section above Layout and Appearance. There’s a system of black dots in place to inform the user as to which settings have been changed (from defaults) and they should disappear when reset. Same is true for subsections of Layout and Appearance (which have their own counterclockwise arrow icon to reset and the same black dot concept). User MUST navigate back down into each of those subsections to reset them (the black dots will disappear). Ideally, the top main Setting screen SHOULD have black dots for all the parts of Layout and Appearance sections that have been changed and not yet been reset… to be noticeable for signaling the user.
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Upon first entering the Settings panel, the default Person is set to the selected/focused/highlighted individual from RM’s Person screen. If the user selects a different Person for the chart/list (via the arrow to RootsMagic Explorer screen) then clicks Generate Report, any subsequent use of the counterclockwise arrow icon (to reset to default) Person DOES change back to the selected/focused/highlighted individual from RM’s Person screen BUT the Title will wrongly generate Person name not matching the now-reset Person name. The chart/list Title [Person] variable apparently remains set to name of last report generation (does not reset to default until chart/list is exited and re-entered).
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RM’s rather high default number of Generations can instantly be a problem if the selected Person has more children than the default Box Width for each spanned across the default Page Size Width can accomodate. So, math immediately comes into play and RM chokes since it can’t fit those to the Page Size if Fit to Chart is chosen. Surely it’s better to start off with say 2 Generations and increment accordingly until Fit to Page needs to be unchecked or Layout changes to Box Width or Page Size or Orientation or Margins need to be used to compensate after re-clicking Generate Page. Click Fit Page Width button or Fit to Page button during the ongoing course of previewing Custom Size canvases. Custom size is never reflected in Layout (the nearest other paper size such as Legal/Tabloid/etc. is). Page Layout subsection of when Fit to Chart is de-selected also brings math into the preview difficulties. If the Box Width is relatively small in comparison to the Page (ie. canvas) Size width or height… then the Zoom In button sometimes does not have enough range to sufficiently resize the view of parts (box elements/text) of the preview for readability or separation of boxes/lines. There are other stuff amiss (though I can’t remember some) like changes to the Chart Colors Title and Chart Colors Lines DO NOT make it to the Preview or to the final File output. I believe its the same with Borders and perhaps others. In Appearance, when the Box Border type is changed… the change IS NOT reflected in the Appearance panel (the last prior setting is instead reflected).
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@khaden --playing around with this–RM 8 and RM 9 use to produce a fairly nice report BUT ONLY IF YOU LIMITED IT TO 3 GENERATIONS and there isn’t a lot of descendants in each generation-- the more generations/ and or descendants you have the smaller it gets like Kevin’s example
Using the same person and same number of generations with same settings on RM 8 and RM 9
This is RM 9
This is RM 8
RM 8 is better BUT really NOT readable
Here is RM 7–again same person and same # of generations–actually can’t see all of the chart..
In RM 7, the canvas size is
and box sizes are
Not sure how to use the settings from RM7 in RM8 thru RM11
Similar issue as original poster to include the Ancestor Chart as well. Boxes appear with lines thru them and are not readable. Saving as pdf then printing and resetting did not work. I posted about this before, called tech support who said they were aware but as of this last update it has not been fixed.
This was not an issue with RM10. Unfortunately I did not rename my file before installing RM11 so since then have not been able to publish these reports. Hard lesson to learn and frustrating to be sure. I’m a Mac user, Tahoe 26.1 and RM 11.0.4.0.
Hopefully a fix is in the works!
thanks for detailing this info – sometimes the help info in program or website is not as complete or up-to-date as it should be for these things.
The reports when they work are quite good overall – but the the “gotchas” can be quite frustrating.
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