Editing Objects in Charts

The Tools

Selecting Objects in Charts

Selecting Groups of Boxes in Charts

Grouping Objects

Aligning Objects

Layering Objects

Opaque vs Transparent Objects

Duplicating Objects

Moving Objects

Resizing Objects

Rotating Objects

Flipping Images

Object Size and Information

The Tool Panel

Customizing Text in Chart Boxes

Adding Shapes to Charts

Adding Lines to Charts

Adding Dividers and Frames to Charts

Adding People (Boxes) to Charts

Editing Text in Boxes

Deleting Objects, Boxes, and Branches

Color in Tree Charts

Editing Connecting Lines

Pictures in Charts
Adding Text to a Chart

Copying and Pasting Charts and Objects
Chart Frames and Borders
Editing Tree Charts and Orientations

Charts contain objects that you can select, modify, move, align, and delete. Boxes, lines, images, shapes, and blocks of text are examples of objects in charts.

The Tools

Reunion has two basic tools for editing charts: the selection tool and the text tool. To choose a tool, click its icon in the tool panel on the left side of a chart. Most of the time, the selection tool will be your tool of choice.

The selection tool is used to select objects in a chart.

The text tool is used to add or edit text objects, such as captions, annotations, etc.

Selecting Objects in Charts

To work with an object in a chart, you must select it. To select an object, first click the selection tool in the tool panel. With the arrow pointer, click the object. When an object is selected, you'll notice its highlighted border.

Selecting Multiple Objects

To select more than one object, click and drag the arrow pointer to make a selection box that touches the objects. (The selection box does not have to completely surround the objects.) Or, press the Shift key as you click individual objects.

The number of selected objects appears in the lower-left corner of the tool panel.

Selecting All Objects in a Chart

To select all objects in a chart, choose Object > Select > All Objects or press Command-A.

To select all text objects in a chart, choose Object > Select > All Text Objects.

To select all pictures in a chart, choose Object > Select > All Pictures.

To select all boxes in a tree chart, choose Object > Select > All Boxes.

Selecting Groups of Boxes in Charts

Reunion makes it easy to select groups of people in charts — such as everybody in the same generation, all ancestors of a person, etc. To use these special selection features, Control-click a box and choose an item from the Select Boxes submenu.

The table below explains what happens when using the various Select Boxes features. We suggest you experiment: Control-click boxes and make a selection from the Select Boxes submenu and observe what happens on the chart. Also, keep an eye on the number of objects selected, in the lower-left corner of the tool panel.

Menu item
What gets selected
This Box
Only the clicked box.
Generation
The clicked box and all other boxes in the same generation.

Generation+
Descendants

—or—

Generation+
Ancestors

  • The clicked box.
  • All other boxes in the same generation.
  • In a descendant chart, all descendants of people in the generation of the clicked box.
  • In an ancestor chart, all ancestors of people in the clicked box.
  • In a relative chart, all people in the generation of the clicked box and all people in every generation "earlier" than the generation of the clicked box.
Ancestors
The clicked box and all other boxes representing ancestors of the person in the clicked box.
Descendants
The clicked box and all other boxes representing descendants of the person in the clicked box.

Deselecting Objects

To deselect all objects, click the selection tool anywhere in the chart, but not on an object. You can also press the Escape key.

To deselect individual boxes in a tree chart, Shift-click a box.

To deselect groups of boxes, hold down the Shift key while choosing the desired menu command from the Select Boxes menu. (This is described above.)

Grouping Objects

Objects in charts may be grouped so you can work on the grouped object as if it were a single object. For example, you could group an image with a box. If the chart is reoriented, the image will stay glued to the box. You can also...

To group objects...

  1. Choose the selection tool.
  2. Select the objects.
  3. Choose Object > Group.

To ungroup a grouped object...

  1. Choose the selection tool.
  2. Select the group.
  3. Choose Object > Ungroup.

If multiple objects are grouped, you can't move or delete an individual object within the group until you ungroup the object.

The Group/Ungroup commands also appear when Control-clicking a box/object.

Aligning Objects

To align selected objects on a chart, use the Object > Align submenu, shown below...

When aligning objects along their tops, bottoms, or sides, the objects align with the object farthest out of alignment. When aligning center points, the objects align along an invisible vertical or horizontal line in the center of the objects.

The Align commands also appears when Control-clicking boxes/objects.

Grid

To help visually align objects in a chart, you can show/hide a grid of dots exactly one inch apart. To show the grid, choose Window > Show Grid. This setting (whether or not an on-screen grid is visible) is saved globally — meaning it will apply to all the charts you view or create. The grid dots do not print.

Layering Objects

Objects in charts are layered or "stacked" and may overlap. If an object is partially obstructed, you might need to move the object "to the front" in the layering order.

To change the layering of an object, select the object(s) using the selection tool, and choose an item in the Object > Layer submenu.

Front moves the object to the front; in front of all other objects in a chart.

Back moves the object to the back, behind all objects in a chart.

The Layer commands also appears when Control-clicking boxes/objects.

Opaque vs Transparent Objects

You may want objects, such as boxes in charts or graphic shapes to be opaque (thus hiding anything "underneath") or transparent (thus exposing anything "underneath"). Whether an object is opaque or transparent depends on its fill pattern, which is selected by clicking the Fill Pattern button in the Tool Panel.

Transparent objects can't contain a "fill color." Thus, if a fill color is applied to an object whose fill pattern is transparent, the fill pattern will be changed to opaque.

Duplicating Objects

To duplicate selected objects, choose Object > Duplicate. You can only duplicate text (captions, etc.), images, and shapes — not boxes in the chart.

You can also duplicate objects by Option-dragging them.

Moving Objects

To move selected objects, simply drag them to the new position. When you move a box, its connecting line will travel with the box automatically. When your mouse is on top of a movable object, the pointer changes to a cross hair with arrows.

To nudge selected objects precisely (one pixel at a time), press Right Arrow, Left Arrow, Up Arrow, or Down Arrow.

To move selected objects beyond the boundaries of the document window, drag the object near the inside edge of the document window. Reunion will scroll the chart in that direction.

To constrain movement of objects to a straight line (90 degrees)...

  1. Click the object(s).
  2. Press the Shift key.
  3. Drag the object(s).

If you move an object and its alignment with other objects is lost, you can use the Object > Align submenu.

To add or remove space between all boxes in a chart, use the Tree > Space Between Boxes submenu.

Before you move objects, remember that you can group, layer, and align objects to help you achieve the results you want. To move multiple objects easier, group them first.

Overlapping Objects

When you drag boxes in a graphic chart, you could accidentally put one box on top of another or make a change that would result in overlapping boxes or lines. To show portions of the chart containing overlapping boxes and/or lines, choose Tree > Show Overlap.

To fix the problem of overlapping, you can simply move the box by dragging or nudging boxes. If the problem is widespread (for example, if you accidentally moved an entire branch over another) you can choose Edit > Undo, or redraw the chart by choosing Tree > Orientation.

Resizing Objects

Pictures on a chart (not pictures inside boxes) and shapes (not boxes) can be resized by selecting the object and clicking and dragging one of the resize handles on the outside edge of the selected object.

Note: Boxes and text objects are automatically resized based on the amount of text in the box. Resizing pictures inside boxes is explained here. Pictures are scaled proportionally when resized, whereas shapes are not.

To resize a shape proportionally, hold down the Option key when resizing.

As you resize a picture or shape, you can see the dimensions of the object in the left end of the scroll bar, at the bottom of the screen.

To restore a picture to its original size, Control-click (or right-click) the picture and choose Size > 100% from the menu.

To resize a picture to 50% of its original size, Control-click (or right-click) the picture and choose Size > 50% from the menu.

Object Size and Information

Clicking and holding down the mouse button on an image will tell you three things in the left side of the bottom bar...

  1. The format of the image data: TIFF, PDF, PICT, or EPS.
  2. The size (in bytes) of the native data.
  3. The size (in pixels) of the image as it sits on the chart.

Reunion can't change the file size (number of bytes) of a picture — that must be done using an image editing app — however you can resize a picture (its dimensions) in Reunion, directly on the chart (as described in the previous section on this page).

Rotating Objects

To rotate text, pictures, shapes, frames, and dividers - select the object and click and drag one of the rotation handles located at the top-left or top-right of the selected object.

Flipping Images

There may be times when you need to flip (or mirror) and image either horizontally or vertically. For example a person may be pictured looking to the left but would look much better on the chart looking to the right. This would be a case where the image could be horizontally flipped.

Note: vertical flipping creates a mirror image and is not the same as rotating the image 180 degrees. See the illustrations below.

To flip and image horizontally and/or vertically, control-click (or right-click) on the image and select either Flip Horizontal or Flip Vertical from the menu.

The Tool Panel

The tool panel is a strip of buttons that appear along the left side of a chart. Most of the buttons in the tool panel disappear when no objects are selected in the chart.

To hide/show the tool panel, click the little Tool Panel button at the bottom of the chart or press Command-T. Most of the time, you'll want it visible.

The tool panel works its magic on selected objects. Thus, to modify a single box, you must select one box. If you want to modify everybody in a particular generation, select all the boxes in that generation before using buttons on the tool panel. If you want to modify a picture, click the picture to select it. Keep an eye on the number of selected objects, shown at the bottom of the tool panel.

Below is a picture of the tool panel, along with a description of its buttons. Note, the tool panel appearance changes sometimes, depending on what you've selected.

The Tool Panel Buttons

Box

The first group of buttons in the tool panel are used to change the fill pattern, fill color, border (or perimeter) color, and the border depth of selected objects. To hide a box border, set the border depth to None. The border of a box (or perimeter) can be a hairline, 1/2 point, 1 point, 2 points, or None.

The Box Fill Color button won't appear if you choose the transparent icon from the Box Fill Pattern menu.

Gradient

A "gradient" is a color fill that gradually blends from one color to another. To apply a gradient to boxes, select one or more boxes and use the tool panel Gradient button (within the Box group of buttons). The Gradient button does not appear when a selected box is transparent.

Corners

The corners of boxes in a chart can be square, rounded, beveled, or inset. To choose the style of box corners, select one or more boxes in a chart and use the first button in the Corners section of the tool panel. When corners are rounded, beveled, or inset, then a Size button will appear in the Corners section. Use that button to choose the degree or depth of the roundness/beveling/insetting.

Shadow

This second group of buttons in the tool panel are used to change the box shadow color and depth of selected objects. A box shadow is wrapped around the bottom and right sides of a box. The depth of the shadow can be from 1 to 7 points or None. To eliminate a box shadow, set its depth to None.

Line

This group of tool panel buttons are used to change the line that connects to selected boxes. You can change the line color, depth, continuity, and connection style. The best way to learn the various connecting styles is to create a small chart and experiment.

Customizing Text in Chart Boxes

Reunion keeps track of the different categories of text in all chart boxes, meaning each category of text can have its own color, size, and style. Categories include: surnames, full names, the entire name line, the entire entry for a person (including any fields associated with a person), spouses, and other attributes like relationship, sex, child status, etc.

The example chart boxes to the right show some of these features...


It's a simple 3-step process to change the text size, style, and color of different categories of of data in chart boxes...

  1. Select the box(es) you want to modify (one, several, a branch, a generation, etc... or all chart boxes).
  2. Use the Text Mode button in the tool bar to select the category of text you want to change. This is the first button in the last group of buttons in the tool panel (under the heading "Text"). There are many categories to choose from (last names, full names, lines, entries, etc.) as described in the next section.


  3. Use the Font, Size, Leading, Style, Color, and/or Alignment buttons to apply attributes to the text category in the selected boxes.

The Text Mode Menu: Selecting Categories of Text

The Text Mode menu is divided into different sections...

Within each section, categories can be selected independently. For example, you can apply one color to "Male name lines" and a different color to "Female name lines." Or, you can make just the "Primary names" appear in bold, brown text.

Note #1: The content of the Text Mode menu is determined by the content of the chart. For example, if a chart doesn't include relationships then "Relationship" won't appear as an option in this menu. Likewise if chart boxes don't include spouses, then items relating to spouses will not be available in the menu.

Note #2: "Primary" refers to the first person who appears in a box. In a descendant chart, the primary person would be the direct descendant of the starting couple in the chart.


Beneath the Text Mode button are six buttons for setting attributes of text.

Note: Keep in mind that these buttons will apply changes to selected boxes and to the categories of text that are checked in the Text Mode menu.


Removing/resetting all size, style, and color settings of boxes

To remove all text style in selected boxes, select Reset styles from the bottom of the Text Mode menu. This will restart the entire customization process.

Note that choosing Reset styles does not impact changes you have made to "All lines" with regard to font family, text size, and text color. By contrast, leading and alignment are reset. Put another way, doing a "reset" is the means to remove changes you've made to the Name line, Entries, Names, Last names, etc., using the Text Mode menu — and falling back to the settings for "All lines."


Saving Defaults

The menu item Object > Save Default Box Attributes will save the text mode choices of the selected box.


Shortcuts: to increase or decrease the size of text in selected boxes by 1 point, press...


Note regarding pedigree charts:

In pedigree charts, “Source” and “Spouse” do not appear in the Entries section of the Text Mode menu, since the spouse is always in a separate box.

Adding Shapes to Charts

To add graphic shapes to a chart — rectangles, rounded rectangles, beveled rectangles, inset rectangles, ovals, diamonds, stars, triangles, crescents, shields or ribbons — use the Edit > Add Shape submenu - or control-click (or right-click) the chart canvas and select the Add Shape submenu.

Shapes can be moved, resized, rotated, deleted, duplicated, and edited by selecting the item and then...

For precise positioning, selected shapes can be nudged by pressing the arrow keys on your keyboard. Shapes can be resized by clicking/dragging the resize handles on the outside edges. Shapes can be rotated by clicking and dragging on the resize handles at the top-left and top right of the selected shape.

When shapes are selected, relevant buttons will appear in the tool panel. For example, fill pattern fill color, shadow depth, etc.

Adding Lines to Charts

To add a line to a chart — use the Edit > Add Line menu command - or control-click (or right-click) the chart canvas and select the Add Line.

To edit a line, select it on the chart canvas. When the line is selected the draggable end-points will appear as blue dots and any mid-points will appear as blue dots (mid-points for curved lines will appear as green dots.)

Lines don't have to be straight — they can have additional mid-points added between the end-points (in effect, adding a line within a line, or creating multiple angles.) To add a new mid-point, double-click somewhere on the line. To delete a mid-point, double-click the mid-point to be deleted.

To move an end-point or mid-point click and drag it to the desired location.

When lines are selected, relevant buttons will appear in the tool panel. For example, the curved checkbox, line width, line color, terminator options, shadow depth, etc.

This group of buttons is used to change a line (not the lines that connect to boxes).

To constrain angles of lines to 45 degrees (including line extensions, described above)...

  1. Click the line end point.
  2. Press the Shift key.
  3. Drag.

Adding Dividers and Frames to Charts

To add a decorative frame or divider to a chart — use the Edit > Add Divider or Edit > Add Frame menu command - or control-click (or right-click) the chart canvas and select the Add Divider or Add Frame.

When a divider or frame is first added a default type is automatically assigned to the new object. Click on the first item in the tools on the left to select from a list of dividers or frames.

When a divider or frame is selected, relevant buttons will appear in the tool panel. Divider/frame type, scale, color, shadow depth, and shadow color.

Adding People (Boxes) to a Chart

This feature provides an easy way to make minor additions to a chart. For example, if you spend a lot of time editing a big wall chart and then discover that Aunt Martha had another child, you can simply select Aunt Martha's box, choose Object > Add Box, and presto, a new box will appear, connected to Aunt Martha. You don't have to recreate the entire chart.

This feature also provides a way to add somebody to a chart who is not a blood relative of the source person. Some people add boxes for pets.

To add a person to a chart...

  1. Select the box for the person to which you want the new box attached.
  2. From the menu at the top, choose Object > Add Box.

This will add a new box connected to the one you selected. You can type in a person's name and any other information you want to appear in the new box.

You can edit the new box and its contents or attributes just like any other box on the chart. Boxes are automatically resized to fit the text inside the box.

Shortcut: Hold down the Control key and click a box. Then choose Add Box from the menu that appears.

Note: Boxes added to a chart using the Add Box feature have some limitations:

  1. Information in these boxes can't be automatically updated from the family record.
  2. You can't automatically put pictures in these boxes.
  3. You can't use the "go to family" feature.

Editing Text in Boxes

(Note: This section is about changing the text in boxes. If you want to change the font, color, style, etc., of text in boxes, jump back to this section.)

To edit text in tree chart boxes or text objects (such as captions), double-click a box or caption and the cursor will change automatically to the text cursor. Or, select the Text tool on the tool panel and click on the text you want to edit.

You can use standard text-editing keyboard shortcuts. You can enter a maximum of 50 lines of text inside a box. The maximum number of characters per box is 4,500.

Depending on the extent of your text editing (for example, changing font or font size, or adding substantial text), redrawing the chart may be necessary and desirable. To redraw a chart, choose Tree > Orientation.

For example, if you choose a significantly larger font size, the boxes will grow to accommodate the larger font size and boxes may overlap. You can also search for overlapping boxes and perhaps perform minor nudging to remove overlap, rather than redrawing the entire chart.

When you're finished editing text in a box, you can click outside the box to return the cursor to the selection tool. You can also press the Enter key. Pressing the Return key inside a text box will make a new line.

Note: If you zoom out far enough that the resulting appearance of text will be less than 6 points on screen, the box and its text will temporarily appear at 100% when editing.

Deleting Objects, Boxes, and Branches 

There are four ways to delete objects (shapes, boxes, lines) in a chart...

  1. Click on the object to select it. Then press the Delete key.
  2. Drag the object to the trash can on the Dock.
  3. Hold down the Command and Option keys and double-click an object.
  4. Hold down the Control key and click an object. This will show a menu. Choose Delete from the menu.

To delete a picture inside a box, drag the picture out of the box and then use one of the methods listed above to delete the picture.

What Happens When You Delete a Box in a Tree Chart?

If you delete one box in a tree chart, be aware of the consequences...

After deleting boxes from a chart, you may want to redraw the chart by choosing Tree > Orientation. This will remove the empty space that is created when boxes are deleted. As an alternative, you could drag/move other boxes and branches in the chart to fill the empty space.

Generally speaking, if you create a chart and you plan to hack big pieces from the chart, you should do this immediately after the chart is created (i.e., before performing other editing).

Note: Deleting boxes and branches in a chart does not affect any data in your Reunion family file.

Deleting the Contents of a Box in a Tree Chart

If the entire contents (text and pictures) is deleted from a box, then deleting that box will result in the same consequences listed above. For example, if you delete all the text and pictures from within a box in a descendant chart, then all descendants of the person (or couple) in the box will be deleted also. However, if the box has text and pictures and you only delete the text from a box (leaving the picture as is), then the box with its picture and all its descendant boxes will remain on the descendant chart. To retain an “empty” box and its descendant boxes, you need to keep only a blank character in an “empty" box.

Color in Tree Charts

In addition to applying colors for selected objects — for example, boxes in generations, branches, direct lines, individual boxes, shapes, picture frames, etc. — Reunion can instantly apply different colors to boxes in different generations. The Colors window lets you select a series of colors that repeat every one to ten generations of a chart. To open the Colors window, choose Tree > Colors.

To select colors for different generations, click a generation box on the left side of the window (1 through 10). The buttons on the right side let you choose colors for box fill, border, shadow, and text of the generation highlighted on the left side of the Colors window. (Note: the Gradient button affects all generations.)

The Presets button includes several default color schemes. The Repeat button sets the size of the repeating color cycle — from one to ten generations.

Unchecking the Text button will change the box colors without altering the text color.

The little boxes can be dragged up/down to change their order.

The choices in the Colors window will become the automatic default color settings for new tree charts. Learn more about automatic defaults.

Color for Groups of Boxes: Ancestors, Descendants, One Generation, Etc.

Another effective use of color is to apply a color (or any attribute) to all boxes representing a particular group of people. For example, all the direct ancestors of a person, all the descendants in a branch, everybody in the same generation, all your first cousins, etc.

To do this, first select the group of boxes using one of the Control-click special selection features (or the old fashioned way — manually). Then, by using the various tool panel buttons for box, line, shadow, and text, you can pick and choose color attributes, text attributes, or line attributes for the selected group of boxes, thereby helping to differentiate them to your audience.

Editing Connecting Lines

To edit the color, width, and continuity of connecting lines in a chart, choose Tree > Lines to open the Lines window. (To change the way lines connect to boxes, use the Line connection style button in the tool panel.)

You may be wondering, "why not simply press Command-A to select all objects and then make changes using the tool panel..." Well, you can do that, but be aware that charts contain special lines for spouses (and parents, in Relative charts), so even if you choose Object > Select > All Objects and make changes, you'll still come back to the Lines window to designate unique-looking spouse and parent lines (those lines should look different than other connecting lines).

The Lines window has three sections...

  1. The Connect section applies to the connecting lines between boxes for parents and children in all charts.
  2. The Spouse section handles the special connecting line between boxes for multiple spouses in descendant and relative charts.
  3. The Parent section applies to the angled lines that connect parents in relative charts.

In each section, use the three menu buttons to choose a line color, width, and pattern. The width or thickness of connecting lines can be a hairline, 1/2 point, 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 points. A hairline is the thinnest line that your printer can print. If you don't want connecting lines, choose None.

The choices made in the Lines window will become the default line settings for new tree charts.

What Happens When Clicking the OK Button?

When clicking the OK button, only the line settings in the selected tab will be changed.

For example, let's say you've manually altered the color or width of connecting lines in a descendant chart. If you subsequently use the Tree > Lines window to modify the Spouse lines and click OK, then the spouse lines will be affected; but your previously edited connecting lines won't be affected by the settings in the Lines > Connect window.