How to Use the Manual

Opening the Manual
Searching the Manual
Search Tips
Finding Text on a Page
Navigating the Manual Pages
Printing Portions of the Manual

Copying Text on a Page
Manual Font Size
Manual Conventions

Opening the Manual

This manual may be opened in three different ways...


  1. Click the Help button ( ? ) in the lower-left corner of any window. This opens the manual to a page relevant to what appears in the middle of the Reunion window.

  2. From the top of the screen, choose an item from the Help menu. The first two items in the Help menu will usually relate to what you're doing in Reunion. The menu also contains several key pages in the manual, links to our web site, and a link to check for updates.

  3. On the keyboard, press Command - ?. This opens the manual to a page relevant to what appears in the middle of the Reunion window.
Note: This manual only contains pictures of buttons and menus. You should be looking here and simultaneously looking in the main Reunion window (with your family file). When the manual has a picture of a button or menu, or tells you to click a button or menu, bring the main Reunion window to the front and then look for the corresponding button or menu in the Reunion window, not here in the manual window.

Searching the Manual

To search the manual...

  1. Open the manual (see the three ways to open the manual, listed above).
  2. Type a word or two into the search box at the top-right of the manual page. The words should relate to the subject for which you need help.
  3. Press the Return key or Enter key.

Reunion then finds all pages containing the search words, sorts them by relevance, and shows a Results page with a list of up to 25 "hits" in the form of abstracts with links. It behaves much like the Google search engine we all use, although faster and without advertisements.

Search Tips

Use Multiple Words

You can dramatically improve the search results by using at least two or three search words. Adding search words is the easiest way to focus your search quickly — in effect, adding search terms narrows your results.

For example, if you need help with adding a child, don't just look for "child." Look for "add child."

Reunion displays help pages that contain ALL the words in the search box. (This is the equivalent of a Boolean AND search.)

Don't Search for Generic Words

Don't search for words such as: and, or, of, a, what, etc.

Case Doesn't Matter

Searching in the manual is case-insensitive. Searching for "Adopted" or "adopted" is the same.

Broaden a Search

It isn't necessary to enter complete words, since Reunion will look for words that "start with" your search words. Here are some examples...

Keyword
Matching Words
source
source and sources
del
delete and deleting and delimiter
child
child and children
fam
family and families

A Shortcut

One of Reunion's many letter key shortcuts includes typing ? and search words. For example, rather than first opening the manual window, just type ?leap year and press Return.

Finding Text on a Page

Once you arrive on a particular page in the manual, click the Find button (in the bottom bar) if you need to find a word on the current page.

Or, choose Manual > Find on This Page or press Command+F.

Navigating the Manual Pages

Use the Back and Forward buttons, just as you would in your web browser, to navigate between manual pages. Or use the shortcuts...

The Contents button takes you back to the manual Contents page. You can also choose Help > Contents.

The History button, in the bottom bar, will show a list of recent pages you've visited in the manual, including search results pages.

The Top button, in the bottom bar, will scroll the current manual page to the top.

For quick access to key pages in the manual, use the Bookmarks button on the manual toolbar.

Using the Topic List

The list of topics at the top of most pages will contain a dividing dash. The topics above the dash are on the current "page" of the manual, whereas topics below the dash take you to a different page.

Tips

Printing Portions of the Manual

To print the current section of the manual (that is, the entire page when scrolled up and down), choose File > Print.

Note: There is no PDF version of the manual available.

Copying Text on a Manual Page

On any manual page, you can click and drag to select text. When text is selected, you can choose Edit > Copy (or press Command-C) to copy selected text to the Macintosh Clipboard.

Manual Font Size

By default, the manual uses the Lucida Grande font, size 12. To experiment with different font sizes in the manual, choose Manual > Make Text Bigger or Manual > Make Text Smaller.

Manual Conventions
His or Her
To avoid the clumsiness of phrases like "his or her" and "he or she," this manual usually picks one gender or the other, pretty much at random.
Menu Commands
Menu items from the top of the screen are referred to as follows: Menu Title > Menu Command. For example, if the user's guide tells you to choose File > Open, it means you should select Open from the File menu. Menu choices from pop-up menus also appear in this color.
Button Names
Names of buttons appear in this color: ButtonName.