Editing Fan Charts

What's in a Fan Chart?

The Fan Spread
Fan Settings

Content

Text

Color
Editing One Cell in a Fan Chart

Applying Attributes of One Cell to Other Cells
Moving a Fan Chart
Optimizing the Size of a Fan Chart

Resizing Generations Manually


Going to the Family View From a Chart

Editing Other Objects in Charts

What's in a Fan Chart?

A fan chart starts with a source person in the center and moves backward in time, showing the direct ancestors of the source person in concentric rings moving away from center. Each ring depicts a generation of distance from the source person.

The fundamental element of a fan chart is a cell. A cell is a polygonal-shaped piece of the fan containing one individual or a couple. The fan chart is comprised of multiple generations of ancestors radiating around the center. The center contains the source or starting person of the chart.

Fan charts may also contain pictures, shapes, and text objects, all of which may be edited.

After a fan chart is created, the chart can be customized and edited in many ways.

The Fan Spread

Fan charts can be variably spread (or shaped) anywhere between 150° and 360°. (Think of gradually spreading out a hand-held fan.)

The illustrations below show four examples: 150° (minimum), 180° (semi-circle), 270°, and 360° (full circle, maximum).

A fan's spread is continuously variable. To change the fan spread, click and drag the edge of a cell on either side of the chart. Be sure the cursor becomes a pointing finger before dragging, as shown here...

As the fan spread changes, the number of degrees will appear in the lower-left corner.

Naturally, as the fan "opens up" in shape, more data will become visible in cells in "outer" generations — toward the edge — as the cells become larger.

Another way to change the fan spread is via the Fan Settings > Content panel. However, only four preset angles can be selected there.

Follow these links to learn more about resizing generations and optimizing the overall size of a fan chart.

Fan Settings

The overall settings that apply to a fan chart are located in one place: the Fan Settings window. To see these settings...

  1. Create a new fan chart or open an existing fan chart. (Creating a fan chart was explained here.)
  2. From the menu at the top, choose Fan > Settings.

The choices you make in the Fan Settings become the default settings for new fan charts.

The Fan Settings window has three sections, explained below: Content, Text, and Color.

Fan Settings > Content

To see the Fan Settings > Content panel, choose Fan > Settings > Content.

Total generations
The number of generations in a fan chart can be changed using the Total generations button in the Fan Settings > Content panel. The minimum is 2, the maximum is 10.

Unlike other kinds of charts, the number of generations can be changed after a fan chart is created; however, the number of generations originally specified for the chart in the Charts > Fan panel can't be exceeded.

For example, if a chart was initially created to be 7 generations, the Fan Settings > Content panel could be used to make the chart anywhere from 2 to 7 generations, but it couldn't exceed 7 generations without going back to the family view and generating another chart (for more generations). Put another way, the Total generations button in the Fan Settings > Content window will not automatically extract additional generations from the database that weren't included in the initial chart.

Space between generations
This setting determines how close one generation sits to the next generation. If you think of a fan chart as a series of semi-circle "bands" then this setting makes the bands closer together or farther apart.

Space between cells
This setting impacts the amount of space between the edges of cells in the same generation. For example, when a husband and wife are in adjacent cells, this setting determines how tight they'll appear.

Spread
A fan chart can be variably "spread" (or shaped) in a circular pattern — think of gradually spreading out a hand-held fan. Four presets are available in the Fan Settings > Content panel: 150° (minimum), 180° (semi-circle), 270°, and 360° (full circle). As explained above, the fan can also be manually spread between 150° and 360° by dragging its edge.

Split
This option in the Fan > Settings > Content panel will split the ancestors into two uniform wedges on either side of the source person. Here is an example of a split fan chart...

 

A fan chart can be split/unsplit manually by clicking and dragging...

Include empty cells
To include or exclude empty cells in the fan chart, use the Include empty cells button in the Fan Settings > Content panel. Excluding empty cells won't necessarily impact the overall size of a fan chart; however, it will make the fan chart easier to comprehend.

Here is a reduced version of a fan chart with empty cells removed.

Group parents
When enabled, the Group parents button will cause couples to appear in the same cell with a dotted dividing line.

Note: As explained here, Reunion provides a feature to apply colors in fan charts based on sex. If this feature is enabled and different colors for the border/shadow are selected for males and females in a fan chart, then checking the Group parents button will make the border/shadow color assigned to males automatically apply to females as well. I.e., when parents are grouped (for example, think of a mother and father appearing in the same cell) then their cell can only have one color for the border/shadow.

Rounded cell corners
This option will add a slight rounding of all four corners of each cell in the fan chart.

Perimeter and Perimeter color
The perimeter of a fan chart is simply a line drawn around the entire fan chart. To draw a perimeter, use the Perimeter button to select a depth. Click the Perimeter color button to select a color.

Add background
When enabled, this button will place a solid color or a gradient behind the fan chart.

Fan Settings > Text

The purpose of the Fan Settings > Text panel is to select attributes for text in a fan chart. To see the Fan Settings > Text panel, choose Fan > Settings > Text.

Text font
The font used for text in every cell in the fan chart is selected using the Text font button in the Fan Settings > Text panel.

Line spacing
To change the amount of space between lines of text in chart cells, use the Line spacing button in the Fan Settings > Text panel. Line spacing, or "leading," refers to the amount of vertical space between lines of text. Different fonts have, by default, different amounts of space between lines. Reunion's Line spacing control offers the flexibility to "tighten" or "loosen" adjacent lines in cells. Also, fan charts with a smaller spread, and thus smaller cells, may benefit from tighter line spacing.

Fonts for generations
The Fan Settings > Text panel also provides a place to select text attributes that apply to every cell in one generation — or to every cell in multiple generations.

Each generation of the fan chart is represented by a row in the Text panel. To apply changes to multiple generations, Shift-click or Command-click on different rows before making changes. To select all generations, press Command-A.

Each row has a series of buttons to choose different attributes for the appearance of text in the cells of a generation.

Each column in the list of generations represents one text attribute and has a column title for guidance. These are described below...

Tip: To open the Fan Settings > Text panel with a particular generation already selected, Control-click any cell in that generation and choose Fan Settings > Text from the menu that appears.

Fan Settings > Color

The purpose of the Fan Settings > Color panel is to select color attributes that apply to people in a fan chart based on branch, generation, or sex.

To see the Fan Settings > Color panel, choose Fan > Settings > Color.

To select the manner in which colors will apply, click the button called Apply color by. Each row in the Color panel represents a generation, branch, or sex.

To apply changes to multiple generations, multiple branches, or both sexes, Shift-click on different rows before making changes. To select all generations, branches, or both sexes, press Command-A.

Each row in the Color panel has a series of buttons to set different attributes for the use of color in cells of a generation, branch, or sex.

Each column in the Color panel represents one attribute to which color may be applied. Each column has a title at the top for guidance. These are described below...

Cell shadow
To add a shadow to each cell in the fan chart, enable the Cell shadow button in the Fan Settings > Color panel. The size of the shadow is fixed and dependent upon the "Space between cells" setting in the Fan Settings > Content panel, described above.

The Presets button in the Fan Settings > Color panel includes several default color schemes which apply to multiple generations, multiple branches, or sex.

Note: if the Group parents button is checked (in the Fan > Settings > Content panel) and then changes are made to the border or shadow colors in the Fan > Settings > Color panel, the Group parents button will be unchecked automatically. Put another way, parents can't be grouped if you apply different colors to the cell borders/shadows of cells for males and females in a fan chart — because when grouped, they are treated as a single cell.

Editing One Cell in a Fan Chart

To edit a single cell, double-click it. This opens the Cell window.

The text fields in the Cell window can be used to edit the first name, last name, suffix title, and dates for a person in a cell. This data originally came from your family file; however, you can change it here if necessary. Changing anything here, in the Cell window, does not affect data in your family file.

Applying Attributes of One Cell to Other Cells

After you've made selections in the Cell window for a particular cell, the attributes of that cell can be applied to other, related cells in the fan chart.

Example 1: A person in one of the earlier generations could appear with red, bold text. And then the same red, bold text could be applied to all of his descendants, making a nice visual direct line connection.

Example 2: In the example below, we've selected the starting person and then applied blue text, blue cell color, and a darker drop-shadow exclusively to his paternal ancestors.

To apply attributes of one cell to other cells, begin by double-clicking a cell. Then, after choosing the desired attributes in the Cell window for that cell, click the button Apply attributes to other cells.

This opens the Apply Attributes window.

In the Apply Attributes window, use the five check-box buttons to select attributes that will be applied to other cells. Multiple attributes can be selected. The choices are...

Then, by clicking the To: button, select the "other" cells to which attributes will be applied. The choices in the menu will depend on the location of the cell that was originally selected (i.e., the cell that was double-clicked to open the Cell window). The menu includes...

Referring to the two illustrations above, example 1 shows cell attributes being applied to descendants. Example 2 shows cell attributes being applied to paternal ancestors.

Moving a Fan Chart

To move a fan chart on the "canvas," (i.e., the page or spread of pages making up the chart document) move the cursor until it looks like this...

Then click and drag the chart. (This may be easier to do if the chart is zoomed out.)

Optimizing the Size of a Fan Chart

Choosing Fan > Optimize Size will evaluate the size of text in each cell of a generation, and the orientation of text in each generation, and then resize each generation accordingly (except generation 1 — the innermost semi-circle). The size of the entire chart is thus "optimized" as a by-product of optimizing the size of each generation individually.

The more generations in a fan chart, the less space is available for text in the "outer" generations. At a certain point, it's simply not feasible for text to appear in teeny tiny cells.

Here are some ways to manage the problem of shrinking cell space as you move away from the center of the fan chart. (Most of these features are located in the Fan Settings > Text panel.)

Resizing Generations Manually

A fan chart can "manually" be resized generation-by-generation by clicking and dragging anywhere on the arced line between two generations. You'll notice the cursor changing to a pointing finger as it is moved between generations. When you resize a generation, all earlier generations are moved. ("Earlier generations" in a fan chart are further from the center.)

Note: When dealing with larger fan charts, it's a good idea to zoom out before resizing.