Page Breaks

What Happens When a Page Breaks?
Automatically Avoiding Page Breaks in Tree Charts
Manually Avoiding Page Breaks in Tree Charts


Printing Charts
Page Setup for Charts
Printing Problems

What Happens When a Page Breaks?

To understand page breaks, you'll need to consider three factors:

  1. A chart is a graphic document much like a large canvas. Unlike a word processor that handles a continuous string of text which is easily broken into pages, a chart consists of many individual graphic objects drawn on a canvas and connected in meaningful ways. The objects on the canvas (lines and boxes) can span across page breaks. In fact, objects can sit directly on a page break.
  2. The exact position of page breaks will depend on your printer, your paper size, and your settings in the Page Setup window.
  3. Most printers can't print completely to the edges of a piece of paper — there is usually a small "border" around all four edges of a page on which the printer simply cannot print.

As a result of these three factors, you'll need to examine your charts on-screen to see if a box or entire generation of boxes is sitting on a page break.

Page Breaks On-Screen

Page breaks appear on-screen as a light gray line. To show/hide page breaks, choose Window > Show Page Breaks. This setting is saved independently with each chart.

The easiest way to look for boxes on page breaks is to zoom out to a reduced view of 75% or less.

Automatically Avoiding Page Breaks in Tree Charts
Note: This feature refers to moving boxes off page breaks. This does not move pictures or shapes off page breaks.

To automatically move boxes off page breaks, choose Tree > Move Boxes Off Page Breaks. If you plan to add page numbers to your chart, it's best to add the numbers first, and then move boxes off page breaks. This is because adding page numbers to a chart reduces the height of each page and may cause boxes to land on page breaks. Or, simply open the Page Setup window and enable both options (Move boxes off page breaks and Number pages).

To set options for automatically moving boxes off page breaks, choose Tree > Page Break Options. This opens the Page Break Options window.

In the Page Break Options window, you can set the minimum spacing that will appear between boxes and page breaks. This setting can be between 1 and 20 points, where a point equals 1/72 of an inch.

Also, you can tell Reunion to automatically move boxes off page breaks when new charts are created, and when choosing a new orientation in the Orientation window.

One other way to automatically move boxes off page breaks appears as a button in the Page Setup window.

Manually Avoiding Page Breaks in Tree Charts

By dragging boxes or branches around on the screen, you can avoid splitting your chart boxes by a page break. For example, the illustration below shows a chart that, when printed, will have some boxes split by the page break. (Notice the boxes sitting on a page break.)

Here are two of several possible solutions to this problem:

Solution 1: Control-click the second box in the second generation and choose Select Boxes > Descendants. Then drag to the right — fully onto the second page. This will move the entire branch off the page break and onto the second page. Click here for more information about the selection modes.

Solution 2: Choose Tree > Space Between Boxes > Less Horizontal repeatedly. This will move all boxes closer together, and therefore, the entire chart moves onto page 1. Click here for more information about adding space between boxes.