I am lucky enough to have 11 or 12 generations which is too many to print legibly on an A3 sheet.
Can I create a larger version which I can download and take to my local printer?
You can uncheck BestSize: Fit to Chart choose the Size: Custom in the Fan Chart settings for Page Size and adjust the Width and Height to correspond with the paper size you want. This has the effect in the PDF of shrinking the Title relative to the fan and the PDF Print setting of “Choose paper source by PDF page size” will override the default of “Letter” size.
However, that may not be necessary. Even using RM’s default “Best Size: Fit to Chart” which outputs a Letter size to PDF produces graphics and text that are infinitely scalable. So your printing service should be able to put it on any size sheet they have the capability of printing on. In this case, the Title will be large.
There seems to be a glitch in the RM8 settings dialog in that they do not take until after Generate Report so you might have to Generate Report twice after changing a setting to get the expected result. I’m not entirely sure of that but I have no interest in wasting any more time on another fault.
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Thanks Tom, I will give it a try.
I thought the fan chart was limited to only 9 generations.
Max of 20 generations in RM8
Yes, the slide goes out to 20, but it seems to be a “feature” that only 9 generations are included, the rest of the “rings” are blank. At least, that’s how my RM8 rolls.
I can only get 10 genetrations, i assumed that was the limit
Yes I tried it and it worked well, except, as has been pointed out, we are limited to 10 generations. What a pity.
I think this is subject to the “law of diminishing returns”. The ring for the 9th generation of ancestors of the root person (what RM says is “10 Ancestors Generations”) has 512 boxes that are so narrow as to be virtually useless to even accommodate just the names completely and legibly. The 6th generation is the last to hold more than one line of text. The 4th gen is the last that can hold birth and death dates and locations.
The number of boxes in an outer ring is double that of its adjacent ring or 2^g where g is the number of generations. The 10th generation would require 2^10 or 1024 boxes, the 11th 2048…
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Thanks Tom,
Maybe a new feature could allow, say, 12 generations and provide for more than 1 line of text. This would make it so much easier to get an overview of the data. After all, very little data is available for more than 12 generations. You kindly advised how to generate a pdf which a commercial printer could upscale.
Will this discussion generate consideration as anew feature?
Unless acknowledged here as having been added to the list of enhancement requests, this discussion is unlikely to be considered as a request for a new feature or enhancement. As the OP, you might be able to add the relevant tag to help admin discover it. Better yet would be to make an explicit request with that tag and to also submit it as a Support Request. But don’t hold your breath.
As to a 12 gen fan chart allowing for 2-lines of text in the outer ring, it may not be practical. With the default settings for the RM8 fan chart and limited to 9 generations (the last that supports barely one line of text), it takes about 26"x36" to print at full scale. The outside arc width of a box that holds 2-3 lines (gen 7) is approx 0.75". The outer ring would need 2^11=2048 such boxes across an arc of 225 degrees. That’s a diameter of (360/225x2048x0.75)/π= 782" or a 65ft. wide plot of paper that would need to be about 45’ high. The printing would still be legible to a sharp eye about 8" away if printed at 30% scale but the chart would be around 15’ high.
Because the average radial dimension of all the boxes across the full scale width of the chart is so large at 782/(11+1+11)=34", an alternative would be to concatenate the 2-3 lines on one line beyond gen 7 with everything thereunder following the RM8 current format. That would reduce the plot to around 22’W x 5’H at full scale with the outer boxes approx 1/4"H x 11"W at full scale. Still not very practical.
Which leads to custom printing services such as Ancestry Graphics & Printing who have developed fan charts that can vary the sizes of boxes and their placement to suit the volume of content such as this example:
Note that only boxes with content are printed and the separation between father and mother varies according to how wide the branches are above them. Also note that this 9-generation example requires 42"H x 72"W. I don’t know if the 256 possible gen-9 antecedents of the root could be accommodated in the outer ring (256 boxes) without a larger print area.
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Can I remove the RM numbers from this report - it is a lovely gift chart, but people don’t need the numbers?
Richard
Turn off the display under settings
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BobC - so simple many thanks
Richard