home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
CD ROM Paradise Collection 4
/
CD ROM Paradise Collection 4 1995 Nov.iso
/
hobby
/
gim_308.zip
/
GIM10C.DOC
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1994-02-20
|
12KB
|
231 lines
CHAPTER 10 GENERATING PRINTED FORMS
PART C: THE PREPRINTED FAMILY GROUP RECORD
GIM provides two family group record forms. This is one, and
the other is just called the Family Group Record.
The other one prints family group records (FGRs) on blank
paper, and this one prints them on the preprinted forms,
which is why this section is called "The Preprinted Family
Group Record" or PFGR.
The preprinted forms that are used here are available from
the Family History Department of the LDS Church, and from
their branch Family History Centers. We'll discuss how to
get some blank forms in a moment.
This section of this chapter will discuss how to generate a
preprinted family group record from your folder data.
HOW TO GET BLANK FORMS:
These forms are available free of charge (except, possibly,
for shipping and handling) from:
Salt Lake Distribution Center
1999 West 1700 South
Salt Lake City, Utah 84104
When writing to the Distribution Center, explain that you
want a quantity of Family Group Record forms. When you
write, you should include the catalog order number for this
item, which is 31827. They come in packages of 25.
(They don't charge for these. They usually don't even charge
me shipping and handling costs. But it's best to mention
that you'll be happy to pay any such costs upon receipt of
invoice.)
If you just want a few of them, and don't want to wait for a
whole order of them to arrive by mail, you can get some from
your local branch Family History Center. (If you've never
visited one, look in the phone book under The Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints.) Some FHCs will offer you the
forms produced by Everton Publishing Corp., but make sure you
specifically request the forms produced by the LDS Church,
because they are currently the only forms that GIM's PFGR
function will support.
No matter how you get them, check the lower right hand corner
of the front side of each page. Next to the words "Printed in
the USA", you should see either the numbers 3/93 or 10/93.
These numbers tell you that you have the March 1993 or October
1993 revision of the form, respectively. If the numbers are
earlier than these (e.g. 9/89), they won't work with this
version of GIM, and you need to get newer forms. If they are
later than that, then they were revised after this edition of
GIM, and you can write to the GIM authors to get a more recent
version of GIM that will work with those forms.
GENERATING A PREPRINTED FAMILY GROUP RECORD: The Basics:
Be sure you have selected a printer and a print device from
the Printer Setup Area. See chapter 6, "Setting Things Up"
for details.
Also, make sure your printer has a single sheet feeder, or
some way to insert single sheets into the printer one at a
time. The PFGR function is totally useless without this.
Make sure that your printer is turned on, and is connected to
the same print device -- usually LPT1 -- that you selected in
the Setup Area.
Enter a folder. Navigate to the person who will be one of
the parents on the PFGR that you want to create. If you're
just interested in experimenting with the PFGR's abilities,
any person will do.
From the Folder Area, press F3 to get to the Forms Area. You
can also navigate to the person you want after you have
entered the Forms Area.
From the Forms Area, press F6 to generate a PFGR.
At this point, you'll see a box that is much like the type-
setting options box, but there are some subtle differences.
Note that both the Styles menu and the Typesetting menu that
have been discussed earlier in this chapter have no bearing
or meaning for the PFGR. It has its own typesetting menu,
called the Printer Options menu. The differences between
that one and this one are discussed in a moment; for now,
accept the default values by pressing '=' (the equal sign) to
move on to the next step.
GIM will present you with on-screen instructions from this
point on, telling you when to insert blank forms, when to
insert the reverse sides of the forms, and when to insert
blank pages. GIM will ask you at each point which notes, if
any, you want to include, and whether you want to include
blank pages for extra notes. In other words, just follow the
instructions from that point, and they will lead you through
the process of printing a PFGR.
Note that, unlike GIM's other forms printing options, the
PFGR doesn't bother to try to show you what the printed form
will look like on the screen.
READING THE FAMILY GROUP RECORD
GIM's PFGR has been carefully designed to fill in the blank
form provided by the LDS Church. When the form is complete,
all of the applicable fields should be filled in, and should
all be very self-explanatory.
One exception to this is the numbers that are printed on the
top left-hand side of the front of each page. These numbers
are the (extended) GIN numbers of the husband and wife on the
form. If you sort Family Group Sheets in your notebook by GIN
number -- rather than, say, alphabetically by surname -- then
this numbering system will help you to number the pages in
your notebook.
For a discussion of extended GIN numbers, see Part G of
Chapter 11, which is a section of the discussion of GIM
LISTS entitled "How to Get the Most Out of the Display
Command".
Chances are, the PFGR function should give you the
option of not including the extended GIN numbers. If
you want them removed, let us know.
One of the first things you'll undoubtedly notice on the
first attempt is that what was printed didn't neatly line up
with the blank spaces on the form. This problem, and how to
deal with it, will be discussed in a moment.
Another thing you may notice if you look carefully is that
the preprinted form will read "Page 1 of 4" (assuming that
there are between 8 and 14 children), even though there are
two preprinted forms and a blank page of notes. The page
numbering is counted from 1 to 4, counting both sides of a
preprinted form. The "of 4" in the page numbering does NOT
include any additional notes. Yes, this is a bug, but no,
there's no intelligent way around it.
Only the names of other spouses are listed on the form. This
differs from the blank-page FGR, which also includes dates
and places of marriage. Probably, it would be best to
include that information on this form also. This problem
needs to be addressed.
GENERATING A PFGR: A Maintenance Checklist:
When you start to use GIM's FGRs as serious research tools,
you'll want to make sure that you've entered your submission
information for each of your folders. See the first section
of this chapter for details.
THE PRINTER OPTIONS MENU:
This menu contains the following functions:
- Single or double sided printing
This has the same effect as the same function discussed
at the start of this chapter under the Typesetting menu.
- Top, FGR front and back, and blank front and back margins
These will be discussed in the next section. Note that
they are separate and distinct from the similar margins
that can be specified from the Typesetting menu.
- Change fonts
This has the same effect as the same function discussed
at the start of this chapter under the Typesetting menu.
Choose any available font, but make sure that it's a 12-
pitch font. The PFGR will try to switch to 12-pitch no
matter what you pick, which will probably work even if
you select a 10-pitch font, but it's best to select a
12-pitch font anyway, just to be safe.
- Exit! Abort printing!
Press 0 to stop the form from printing. This is the
last chance you will have to gracefully exit the
printing process.
- Start Printing....
Press '=' (the equal sign) to begin printing the form.
ALIGNING THE PRINTED MATERIAL ON THE FORM:
Writing a program that will line up what gets printed on the
page with the blank fields on a preprinted form is a real
challenge.
For one thing, every printer is different, but more than
that, something about the printing process means that the
blank fields on the preprinted form are never quite in the
same place from one package of forms to the next.
Fortunately, it just happens to work out that most of the
sheets in a single package are printed in such a way that
they are aligned in the same place from one sheet to the
next, which gives us the opportunity to provide a pretty
reasonable solution.
The PFGR Printer Options menu includes values for top margins
and for front and back margins for the preprinted page. Once
you set these values for the first sheet in a package, they
should typically hold true for the rest of the sheets in that
package. (I been through scores of packages of these things,
and only had one exception -- one sheet after another was
printed differently. Fortunately, that's the exception
rather than the rule.)
It may take you a sheet or two per package to experiment and
get the right values, but since the sheets are free anyway,
you can afford to lose one or two.
When adjusting the top and side FGR margin values, remember
that larger values mean larger margins. However, increasing
the margin value by 1 does NOT mean that you are increasing
the margin by a hundredth of an inch, or a tenth of an inch.
It means that you are increasing the margin by one LINE (for
top margins) or by one SPACE or COLUMN (for left and right
margins). This is another difference between the PFGR
Printer Options menu and the Typesetting menu used by the
other forms.