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Customers
GenoPro version: 2.5.3.9
Last Login: Tuesday, August 20, 2019
Posts: 104,
Visits: 1,686
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Judging from the many complete reports and amazing family trees published on the GenoPro site which I browsed with admiration and used for inspiration for my own work, I should not be the only one concerned with a solution for conservation of the many hours (hundreds in my case, probably much more for other users) of work and the wealth of researched and accumulated data, pictures and files.
I have now reached a point where I am quite satisfied with what GenoPro in its current version helped me to achieve and, as a faithful reader of the forum over the last few years, since end of 2009 when I purchased GenoPro, I get the feeling that quite a number of the users active on the forum are somehow happy with what GenoPro has done for a good looking presentation of their genealogy research work. I am always pleased every time I open a genogram and work on it to experience how easy it is to add, cut, paste, shuffle around individuals and whole families and see immediately the result as I go. This is unique and is the single reason why I purchased GenoPro after checking out every other genealogy program I could get my hands on on the Net. As for the report generator, thanks to the assistance of the users on this forum and in particular to the "father" of the generator, I am now able to generate what I wish and work around what is missing by using what exists and, if required, tune my databases to my "Dictionary". This method was the only one to which I have access to, due to my limited technical skills. My skills to change the code are close to nothing. But I am happy with my results. Sure there are always additional functions and data fields/templates which would be nice to have, but recent explanations coming from the developer(s) confirmed that there shall not be any major developments or upgrades to be expected in the future, ever. So, the easiest way for me is to use the "Notes" and hyperlinks to external *.pdf files. This way, I recently added their cars (makes, models, registration plates) to the individuals pages of my contemporary family members. And I am sure there are more sophisticated solutions available to more skilled users. But enough said: I am happy with what I have.
At this point of my work, it is time to plan what should happen next, in order not to lose all my work. And there are many aspects, in particular short term and long term.
Short term, as there will be no further fondamental changes or upgrades (which in a way I can sympathize with) as it would probably mean restructuring, redesigning the whole application to take advantage of new tools and totally rewrite GenoPro, it would be reassuring and helpful to have a way out in case a better tool emerges in the future. And I understand this could be achieved with a Gedcom export generator integrating all the latest standards and recommendations of the Gedcom format. This would allow us to use newer capabilities by switching over in the easiest possible way, in case somebody one day is able to design, produce and market a better genealogy program. I can't see anyone on the market yet with the functions I like in GenoPro, but, in the future, who knows. And there, there is hope, as, according to "genome" (forum alias) the designer of the Report Generator, this could be achieved with a new skin for the Report Generator. And it would mean no further investment in the basic code of GenoPro. "Only" the development of a skin. I would be glad to contribute financially and I feel I should not be the only one interested in financing the development for such a tool. GenoPro is probably the better placed to investigate and make a survey among their users to evaluate the pledges they can raise to support such a development.
Longer term and really much longer term, let's say 50+ years, how will somebody be able to read the DVD's or USB keys with backups of reports of his family in HTML format he just found in the legendary "old cardbord shoebox he found in his grand parents attic". To illustrate my point, just try today to decypher a deck of punched cards and this is just 40 years ago! And it might not even be a good example, as you might be able to interpret all the little punched holes, given time, whereas with a DVD, if you don't find a reader, there will be no way to read it. And yet, what a wonderful thought that some enthousiastic family researcher might one day fall by chance on this treasure for him that we have researched. In spite of wars and houses bombed, I had the pleasure to find such wonderful bits, pieces, letters and pictures which more than made my day. Looking at it at all the angles available to my skills, I cannot see any other practical solution than paper back-up. But, I am certainly open to any idea or suggestion. It has its limitations, but seems to have many advantages over all the other available alternatives. For the family trees, the solution exists. It is easy to generate a PDF document and bring it on a USB key to a print shop able to print architecture drawings or posters. For my family trees, I found a nearby shop wich produced very legible 3' x 6' beautiful trees. For the narrative reports, they have probably been primarily designed to be looked at on a computer screen or with a projector (and this works fine and looks great), but not to be printed. I could not find a way to print all the individuals of a narrative report in one go. I can print individual by individual reports, because I need to format each individual separately and this produces nice, good looking PDF documents. For the 2,000+ individuals in my database, it represents several hundred hours of work and I can't sub-contract it to a print shop. Please let me know if I missed something and there is indeed a way to print the narrative reports "automatically", instead of one individual by one individual. Otherwise, how could progress be made towards a practical solution.
Thank you for your patience. Looking forward to reading comments, suggestions and follow-on. My apologies for my english. Kind regards
Roland Schaeffer
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Customers
GenoPro version: 3.0.0.5
Last Login: Thursday, July 3, 2025
Posts: 38,
Visits: 2,310
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Customers
FamilyTrees.GenoPro.com
GenoPro version: 3.1.0.1
Last Login: 11 hours ago
Posts: 142,
Visits: 1,214
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Roland, I was faced with a similar dilemma a few years back plus I have a number of older relatives whose computer skills are limited. I decided to publish a book on my family genealogy using a number of different products and sources.
As David also suggests, I used a product called the Complete Genealogy Reporter which inputs the export from GenoPro to generate much of the family tree data into a book form then added my own narrative. maps, diagrams, pictures, etc. Some customisation is possible in the generation. I would suggest using the "Export to GEDCOM via the Report Generator" feature to extract the data. To publish the book, I used an on-line company called lulu.com, whose rates are very reasonable and who are quite quick (approximately $59 per copy).
I ended up with a very professional looking, hard cover publication which I purchased for each of my family groups. It exceeded all my expectations and I am now confident that the results of my endeavours will be preserved for some time. What was particularly pleasing was the reaction from the family members!
Bob.
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Customers
GenoPro version: 2.5.3.9
Last Login: Tuesday, August 20, 2019
Posts: 104,
Visits: 1,686
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Hi,
Thank you for your replies.
I have already put a lot of information into my GenoPro database, such as transcriptions or copies of birth, marriage and death records, the successive residences (in Contacts) with their addresses and even descriptions when available, real estate transactions from notarial archives, details from censuses, Education and Occupations almost as detailed for some parents as a curriculum vitae even with info on their employers. Most other genealogy softwares I tried to generate reports based on my GedCom files (generated with the GenoPro Report Generator) made a bit of a mess with all this information, reshuffling and merging occupation, residences, military duty or war events in the best cases in almost chronological order and skipping some "Notes" altogether. If I choose to go this route, I shall probably reach a satisfactory result with a GenoPro generated GedCom file stripped down to bare bones (just dates of birth, marriages and death for each individual) to produce some kind of a frame with simple pages of identical format for each individual, and all the rest of the information, documents and pictures in narratives produced "by hand" and to be inserted in all these individual pages. This would mean creating a new GenoPro simple database (or stripping down by hand my current, more complex GedCom file) and writing from scratch all the individual narratives with their pictures, documents, etc. I was hoping to be able to use the full reports I could generate with the GenoPro Report Generator to print full reports identical to their *.html version, but was stopped at the printing stage, as these *.html GenoPro reports do not allow "batch printing", but only individual by individual printing. This makes it also more difficult to subcontract the production of a hard-cover book to a printshop.
Kind regards
Roland Schaeffer
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Customers
FamilyTrees.GenoPro.com
GenoPro version: 3.1.0.1
Last Login: 11 hours ago
Posts: 142,
Visits: 1,214
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desny (29-Jul-2013)
This makes it also more difficult to subcontract the production of a hard-cover book to a printshop.
I am not sure exactly what you are referring to here but the Complete Genealogy Reporter generates not by individuals but your database as a whole. The aim of it is to generate a book format. It is available on a 30-day trial basis so without too much effort, you can download it and just see how it handles your data.
I also had a few problems along the way such as, for example, the "Export to GEDCOM via the Report Generator" file not having any data regarding godfather, godmother or witness type information in it but Ron very kindly helped me out with a fix to enable me to pick these up. Overall, the Complete Genealogy Reporter did a very good job in handling the data generated and the developers of the product are very helpful with any queries.
Bob.
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