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Article Updated September 20, 2005 Family Tree Maker Tips, Hints & FAQs: By: Rick Roberts, Biography & Archived Articles
Adding Extensive NOTES To FTM
"Grace", has extesive notes on some individuals in her Family Tree Maker file. She has noticed that the NOTES tool in Family Tree Maker has a maximum number of characters that it can accomodate and wants to know if there is a way to increase the NOTES capacity. Answer:
Family Tree Maker 2006 (version 13) Original answer published January 12, 2005: The Family Tree Maker program will accomodate large amounts of individual notes for every person included in your file as well as for every marriage. However there is a limit to the amount of space that is provided for this purpose. Most people don't run into the limitation .... in fact most users don't realize that there is a limitation. How lucky, or should I say how "hard working" you have been, to exceed the capacity of the NOTES tool. FTM users cannot increase the capacity of the NOTES section, however there is a solution to your needs that I have used for a long time. You can set up a WORD or WORDPERFECT document for each person that you are keeping extensive notes on. When you start to set up WORD (or Wordperfect etc) documents for each person, I'd suggest creating a special directory and sub-directories to save then in. It's a lot easier to find and use your files later. I set mine up under a directory called GENEALOGY NOTES. Then I have two sub directories of GENEALOGY NOTES called MATERNAL and PATERNAL. Under MATERNAL I set up sub-directories for each of my maternal surnames. Then under each surname I have individual directories for each person that I have extensive notes on. Ditto for the PATERNAL sub-directory. Using Word Processor Information in FTM. The best way to incorporate your external notes in a Family Tree Maker is in the BOOK tool. Open the the Book tool in Family Tree Maker and then create a TEXT ITEM anywhere that you want to add long narrative. You can include that TEXT ITEM anywhere in your BOOK... even as an Appendix Once you have the TEXT ITEM created just open your word processor file for that person... highlight all of the text that you want to include, click on COPY. Then open your FTM file to the TEXT item and PASTE the saved info into it. The result is that the complete information that you want to include in your FTM book will appear just as you created it. This is a much better solution than using the NOTES section in Family Tree Maker. The reason it is better is that your word processor will allow you to set up the pages with tabs and bold and highlights and underlines, different font sizes etc. Also you will have access to the spell check and grammar check in your word processor. The NOTES section in FTM is intended as a place for a few pages of running text narrative and does not have as many options as the TEXT ITEM in the BOOKS tool. Another potential solution for the space limitation in the Family Tree Maker NOTES section is radical editing. One of my favourite anecdotes is about Mark Twain. In the last paragraph of a rambling four page letter to a friend in New York, he apologized for not taking the time to write a one page letter. Hope this helps :) Rick Roberts
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