Create a family tree

By means of the Full Chart, you can create a family tree showing all your blood relatives, or you can choose to show only ancestors, or only descendants, or to limit the number of generations.

You can enter all the information you need to produce a chart directly into the program by choosing New from the File menu, which places you in Edit mode. Or if you have a gedcom file, choose Open from the File menu, then click Browse to find the file and load it into the program. You can edit the file by choosing Edit from the File menu, which places you in Edit mode.

Before producing a chart, you should save your data - you will be reminded to do so. If you do not save your data, it will remain loaded within the program until either you choose to open another file, or you exit the program - but you may not be reminded again that you have not saved it.

By selecting Full Chart from the Charts menu you can choose from two styles of chart, a dropline tree or a boxchart, and if you wish you can limit the number of generations of ancestors and descendants to be shown on the chart. You will be prompted to choose a base individual for the chart, the person whose relatives, ancestors or descendants will be displayed. The program will then produce the chart automatically, when you click Run in the dialog box.

The option to limit generations, together with most of the other options affecting the full chart, is available by choosing Full Chart from the Options menu. To choose margins, change the font used in the chart or change printer settings, choose Margins, Font, or Printer from the same menu, before producing the chart.

You can insert images and additional text into the chart: see HowTo: Add pictures or text to a chart for more information.

If you wish to print the chart, you must first ensure the correct printer is selected, by choosing Printer from the Options menu, and clicking Settings, before producing the chart. You can also select the printer by clicking Printer in the 'Full Chart' dialog. The chart will be formatted for this printer, and may not print successfully if the printer is changed. This is because, for a given paper size, some printers can print over a larger area of the paper than others. A chart which is larger than a single page can be printed across multiple pages: to do so, you must choose the 'With page breaks' option in the 'Full Chart' dialog.

You can also save the chart as a PDF (Portable Document Format), RTF (Rich Text Format), SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics), Postscript or LaTeX file, or as one or more HTML pages, or save it as an image file in either PNG (Portable Network Graphics) or JPEG format, by choosing Save from the menu in Print Preview mode. The Portable Document Format can be viewed by the free Acrobat reader. The Portable Network Graphics format is supported by web browsers, Microsoft Word and many other programs.

To save the chart as an image or PDF or Postscript file, choose 'No page breaks' in the 'Full Chart' dialog. If you choose 'With page breaks', and save as a PDF or Postscript file, the chart will be broken up into separate pages, in a form suitable for printing.

For more information, see HowTo: Save your family tree.

A sample image file (boxchart.png) is supplied with the program. You should be able to view this file by double-clicking on the filename in Nautilus: if you do not have a graphics package installed, your default web browser should open the file.

A sample PDF file (sample.pdf) is also included. You can view this file using the free Acrobat reader, which allows you to zoom in to see text more clearly, or zoom out to see a view of the whole chart.