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Gedchart version 1.6 Jan. 1, 1994
Copyright (C) 1993-1994 Thomas P. Blumer. All Rights Reserved.
This is a beta test version of Gedchart.
A future commercial version will have many additional features. Please
contact me at one of the addresses given below for more information.
I am not labeling this "shareware" because I plan to turn this into a
commercial product soon. But if you like Gedchart and want to support
the development, then send me $20 and I will send you the first commercial
version for free, when it is complete.
Or if you would like to help in another way, please distribute this
release, or upload to your favorite bulletin board or network.
In any event, I am learning a lot from your comments and suggestions,
please keep them coming.
Thanks, Tom
I would like to hear what you think about this program,
please mail any comments or suggestions to:
Internet address: blumer@ptltd.com
Compuserve address: 70740,3403
US mail: Tom Blumer, 63 Sacramento St, Cambridge, MA 02138
Phone: 617-864-6799 or 617-864-6268
Table of Contents
1. Overview
2. Getting Started with Gedchart
3. Printers supported by Gedchart
4. Printing on an HP LaserJet Printer
5. Printing on a PostScript Printer
6. Running Gedchart with command line options (batch mode)
7. International Character Sets
8. Uncompressing the Gedchart.zip file
9. Printing Gedchart PostScript Files on a Macintosh
10. Printing a Title Box on the Chart
11. Printing customized notes for each individual on the chart
12. Printing multiple pages for a large chart
13. Options for printing individual titles
14. Setting paper sizes
15. Using Downloaded Fonts with PostScript
16. Using Gedchart with large GED files
17. History of Changes and Bug Fixes for each Version
1. Overview
Gedchart is a program to prepare family tree charts on your laser
printer. It will produce an elegantly formatted chart of the
ancestors or descendents of a given individual. Ancestor charts have
an option to print either just the direct ancestors or the direct ancestors
with all of their siblings.
Using Gedchart you can easily produce up to 10 generation charts
that will fit on letter size paper and still be quite readable.
2. Getting Started with Gedchart
To start the program, type:
gedchart file.ged
and a menu of choices will appear. Enter the surname and given name
of an individual, the number of generations, the style of chart, the
type of printer, and the name of the printer port (LPT1, COM1, etc)
and gedchart will prepare an ancestor or descendent chart for that
individual.
3. Printers Supported by Gedchart
It will run on any IBM PC (or compatible), and will read in a GED
file and produce several styles of family chart on any of the
following laser printers:
HP LaserJet III family or LaserJet 4 family
Any other printer that supports the PCL5 language
Apple LaserWriter NT or NTX or IIf or IIg
HP LaserJet II or IIP or IID with PostScript cartridge
Any other PostScript printer
4. Printing on an HP LaserJet Printer
All of the LaserJet III and LaserJet 4 printers have 2 modes,
Page Protect=Off and Page Protect=On. The default is page protect off,
which is used when the printer does not have enough memory to store the
entire page, and therefore simply tries to output the job in "bands" or
horizontal strips. If page is too complex to print, then the front
panel will say something like "print overrun" or "complex page" and only
a portion of the page will print. In the case of gedchart the output
will be some part of the paternal line at the top of the page.
The solution is to set Page Protect on for letter size paper via the front
panel. You will need at least 2 MB of RAM in the printer to do this,
otherwise the option to turn on page protect will not be available in
the menus.
To determine the amount of memory in the printer, print a test page.
Usually there is a "test page" key on the front panel. You may have to
hold down the button for about 5 secs until the test page message appears
and then let go.
If you don't have enough memory, consult the manual about the amount of
RAM that is needed for Page Protect mode, then buy and install according
to the instructions in your printer manual.
If the printer already has enough memory, you just need to go to the
appropriate menu on the front panel, and change the setting:
Press Online (light goes out to indicate offline)
Hold Menu key down for about 5 secs to get a new message
Press Menu enough times to see Page Prot=Off*
(the * indicates the current setting)
Press + to change to Page Prot=Ltr (letter size)
Press Enter to change to Page Prot=Ltr*
Press Online
and then try the page again.
These instructions happen to be for a IIID, they may be slightly different keys
on other LaserJets, but the basic idea is the same.
5. Printing on a PostScript Printer
When using a PostScript language printer, the chart will be scaled to fit
the current paper size.
If you generated a PostScript output file for the chart, the ability to scale
to the current paper size is built in to the PostScript commands in the file,
so you can print the same file on several different printers with different
paper sizes.
6. Running Gedchart with command line options (batch mode)
You can run Gedchart from a DOS command line or from a batch file by
typing a command such as:
gedchart -g6 -php3 -NBlumer -nThomas blumer.ged >lpt1
The command line options on this example request a 6 generation chart,
for the LaserJet 3, for the individual with last name Blumer and
first name Thomas, from the GED file blumer.ged. Output is directed to
port "lpt1".
When there are no command line options, gedchart defaults to using the menu
interface.
There are several reasons to use this command line interface. If you are
running the same type of chart repeatedly you can give the command in a
batch file and thus print the chart with no operator intervention.
The same is true for multiple copies sent to a printer, or creating multiple
PostScript files to be sent to another computer, etc.
All of the options are also available from the menu interface except the
"-m" option. This option will scan the GED file and print a list of
the individuals that have the greatest number of generations of ancestors
in the GED file.
Type the command line:
gedchart -h
to see the list of command line options as follows.
Gedchart 1.6 Copyright (C) 1993-1994 Thomas P. Blumer All Rights Reserved.
Usage: gedchart [options] file.ged
-b Birth and death dates on same line
-bb Name, birth and death dates on same line
-Cn Print n copies
-Ffont Font selection for text (PostScript printers only)
-gn Print n generations
-i Turn off interactive query on each name
-N Surname of root individual in chart
-n Given name of root individual in chart
-php3 Printer is HP LaserJet III
-php4 Printer is HP LaserJet 4
-pps Printer is PostScript (black and white)
-pcps Printer is Color PostScript
-pver Printer is VersaTek
-pplot Printer is HP DesignJet 650C
-Psize Paper size, size = letter, legal, A4, D, E
-s Print siblings of root individual (default off)
-S Style: -Sa for ancestor, -Sd for descendent, -Sf for ancestor fan
Example: gedchart -g6 -php4 -NBlumer -nThomas blumer.ged >lpt1
for 6 generation ancestor chart printed on HP LaserJet 4
-a Abbreviate names by removing middle names (default off)
-Af Adjust font point size by factor f
-B Birth,death,marriage,separator: example "-Bb. /d. /m. / " is default
-G Don't print names or dates (for fast look at chart depth)
-m Map of root individuals
-M Turn off marriage dates
-O Offset of name above line (in points)
-rn RIN # of root individual in chart
-U Names and titles in upper case
-V Vertical space adjustment factor for individuals
-Wf Adjust line width by factor f
-w Give stricter warning messages
-xm:n Multi page poster output: print page m of n horizontally
-ym:n Multi page poster output: print page m of n vertically
-Y Print the year only for each date
-zn Options for printing of individual titles:
-z0 do not print titles
-z1 print only suffix titles such as Jr. or III (default)
-z2 print all titles
-L Line color for direct ancestors
-l Line color for indirect ancestors
-T Text color for direct ancestors
-t Text color for indirect ancestors
Colors: r=red g=green b=blue c=cyan m=magenta y=yellow k=black
gedchart -F gives a list of PostScript fonts
Examples:
gedchart -C2 -g6 -pps -Sd -bb -NFuller -nSamuel blumer.ged >lpt1
2 copies of 6 generation descendent chart printed on PostScript printer
gedchart -g7 -pps -Sf -NBlumer -nThomas blumer.ged >lpt1
7 generation ancestor fan chart printed on PostScript printer
gedchart -g8 -php4 -Sf -x2:3 -y2:3 -NBlumer -nThomas blumer.ged >lpt1
center page of a 3x3 page large fan chart for LaserJet 4
gedchart -g8 -php4 -Sa -sb -x2:3 -y2:3 -NBlumer -nTh blumer.ged >lpt1
center page of a 3x3 page large sibling ancestor chart for LaserJet
7. International Character Sets
A GEDCOM (.GED) file often has a CHAR command to specify the character
set in the file to be either ANSEL or IBMPC. Gedchart supports either
option. Files that are produced on a Macintosh may say CHAR MACINTOSH;
the international characters in these files are not supported by Gedchart
in this version.
Gedchart supports the international character set (code page) features in
MSDOS 5.0 to allow different character sets to be entered at the keyboard
or displayed on the screen. Current supported code pages are:
code page 437 English
code page 850 Multilingual
code page 863 French Canadian
code page 865 Danish-Norwegian
In order for the international (accented) characters to work properly,
you must set the same code page when using Gedchart as when you used
another program to create the GED file.
8. Uncompressing the Gedchart.zip File
If you received a uuencoded zip file:
Delete the lines of the message above
begin gedchart.zip ...
and save the result in a file.
Run the command: "uudecode filename" to produce gedchart.zip.
If you have a .zip file:
Run(on a PC): pkunzip gedchart.zip
Please let me know if you have any problems or
if you need me to send the file via some other method.
There are several versions of the pkunzip utility:
Many internet sites have these files, I downloaded mine from
ux1.cso.uiuc.edu
in the directory
/pc/exec-pc
pkz193a.exe version 1.93a
pkz204c.exe version 2.04c
9. Printing Gedchart PostScript Files on a Macintosh
If you ask Gedchart for PostScript, and output to a file, then you
have 2 options.
Carry the PostScript file to a PC, and connect the PC to a PS printer via
serial or parallel cable, then copy the file to the printer:
copy/b file.ps lpt1 (for parallel)
copy/b file.ps com1 (for serial)
Or carry the file to a Mac, start up Apple File Exchange, put in the DOS
diskette, and transfer the file to the Mac. Once the file is on the Mac, use
a program such as "sendPS" or a modem program or font downloader to download
the file to the printer over a serial (modem) port.
The Macintosh program sendPS is available by anonymous ftp from
sumex-aim.stanford.edu.
10. Printing a Title Box on the Chart
Gedchart will print a customized title box on your family tree chart.
If there is a file "label.txt" in the current directory then the text lines
in that file will be enclosed in a small box and automatically positioned
in one of the four corners of the chart, using the corner that has the most
space. Just edit the file "label.txt" with any text editor.
If you want the current date as part of the title box, use
%d for the day, %m for the name of the month, and %y for the year, and
the current day, month, and year will be filled in for you.
Similarly, %f will be replaced by the name of the input GED file.
This version of Gedchart does not support title boxes for PostScript
printers.
11. Printing customized notes for each individual on the chart
When entering data into Personal Ancestral File (PAF) you have the option
of creating notes for each individual. If you include one line of text
in the notes that starts with the word GEDCHART, followed by a space and
some text, then that text will print on the chart under the birth/death
date.
Example line of the notes:
GEDCHART Came over on the Mayflower
12. Printing multiple pages for a large chart
Gedchart has an option for printing a set of pages that can then be taped
together to form a large chart (n pages wide by m pages high).
The command line options to do this are -xn1:n2 -ym1:m2, meaning that the
current page to be printed is page n1 out of n2 pages wide and page m1 out
of m2 pages high.
A DOS batch file to print a large chart 2 pages wide, and 3 pages high
might look like this:
gedchart -g10 -i -php3 -Nblumer -nthomas -x1:2 -y1:3 ..\blumer3.ged >lpt1
gedchart -g10 -i -php3 -Nblumer -nthomas -x2:2 -y1:3 ..\blumer3.ged >lpt1
gedchart -g10 -i -php3 -Nblumer -nthomas -x1:2 -y2:3 ..\blumer3.ged >lpt1
gedchart -g10 -i -php3 -Nblumer -nthomas -x2:2 -y2:3 ..\blumer3.ged >lpt1
gedchart -g10 -i -php3 -Nblumer -nthomas -x1:2 -y3:3 ..\blumer3.ged >lpt1
gedchart -g10 -i -php3 -Nblumer -nthomas -x2:2 -y3:3 ..\blumer3.ged >lpt1
13. Options for printing individual titles
When entering data into Personal Ancestral File (PAF) there is a title
field that is used for an individual title such as Captain or Jr. or III.
Gedchart gives three options for printing the titles:
1. do not print the individual titles
2. print only the titles at the end of the name, such as Jr. or III
3. print all individual titles
The desired title option may be selected through the "Individual Titles"
item on the menus, or through the -z0 or -z1 or -z2 command line options.
14. Setting paper sizes
If you have selected "PostScript printer" in the menus, the chart will be
scaled automatically to fit the paper size, and the paper size setting in
the menus is ignored.
If you have selected "LaserJet III" or "LaserJet 4" in the menus then
you must set the desired paper size in the Gedchart menu, set the same
paper size with the LaserJet front panel, and load the multi-purpose
tray of the printer with the appropriate size paper.
For example, to setup Legal size paper on the LaserJet 4 front panel:
Press "On Line" button (light goes off)
Press "Paper Size" button
Press "+" button until "MP TRAY=LEGAL" shows
Press "Enter" button
Press "On Line" button (light goes on)
Press "On Line" button (light goes off)
Press "Menu" button until "PRINTING MENU" shows
Press "Item" button until "PAPER=..." shows
Press "+" button until "PAPER=LEGAL" shows
Press "Enter" button
Press "On Line" button (light goes on)
Press "On Line" button (light goes off)
Press "Menu" button until "JOB MENU" shows
Press "Item" button until "PAGEPROTECT=..." shows
Press "+" button until "PAGEPROTECT=LGL" shows
Press "Enter" button
Press "On Line" button (light goes on)
15. Using Downloaded Fonts with PostScript
If you have a downloadable PostScript font file, you can use it
for your charts as follows. First download the font to the printer, then
run Gedchart with the -Ffontname command line option to request the given
font name. Note that the font name required by the -F option may be
different than the file name where the font is stored.
16. Using Gedchart with large GED files
There are two versions of Gedchart. The standard version, named
"gedchart.exe", handles GED files of limited size because it can
only use the first 640K of memory. This version has both a command
line interface (type "gedchart -h" for usage) and a menu interface
(type "gedchart filename.ged" to get the menu).
The extended version of Gedchart, named "gedcharx.exe" can handle
very large GED files, because it can use memory beyond the first
640K. This version has only the command line interface, and the
commands are the same as in the standard version.
To use the extended version of Gedchart, you must a 386 or 486
processor. You also must have the file go32.exe in a directory
on the current path, or in the same directory with gedcharx.exe.
The extended version of Gedchart is built using the DJGPP DOS
extender software and the DJGPP port of the Free SoftWare Foundation
GNU C compiler. The DJGPP DOS extender software and the compiler
port were done by DJ Delorie. Sources and executables for the
DOS extender and the GNU C compiler for MSDOS are available on
internet by anonymous ftp.
host: omnigate.clarkson.edu
login: ftp
password: send your e-mail address
directory: ~ftp/pub/msdos/djgpp
17. History of Changes and Bug Fixes for each Version
Version 1.6 Added these features:
descendent charts
option for number of copies to be printed
option for setting line width
handling of fan charts for 8, 9, 10, 11 generations
multi page posters for PostScript printers
Version 1.5 Added these features:
options for handling individual titles
multi page posters for HP LaserJet printers
tagged notes feature
support for paper sizes
option for name, birth, death on same line
option for international symbols for birth, death, and marriage
Version 1.42 Fixed a bug that sometimes caused printing of the wrong
birth and death dates.
Version 1.41 Fixed a bug in the "Remove middle names" feature. The bug
would only occur when "Remove middle names" was on, and some name was
seen more than once in the chart (intermarriage).
--------
PostScript is a registered trademark of Adobe Systems Inc.
PCL is a registered trademark of Hewlett Packard Company.