Software of the Month Club 1996 May

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CHAPTER 10 GENERATING PRINTED FORMS PART D: THE LDS PREPRINTED FAMILY GROUP RECORD GIM provides two LDS family group record forms. This is one, and the other is just called the LDS Family Group Record. The other one prints LDS family group records (FGRs) on blank paper, and this one prints them on the preprinted forms, which is why this section is called "The LDS 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 F4 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.