Web Publishing

The Basics of Web Publishing

Why Publish on the Web?

Three Steps To Publish Reports Online

What Does Reunion Create for the Web?

How Do Web Reports and Web Projects Appear?
Web Reports
Web Folders

Updating a Web Folder

How to Share Your Data Without Using the Web


Web Style

Web Projects
Web Cover Page
Web Family Cards
Media Pages
Web Report Settings

The Basics of Web Publishing

Note: This information does not explain the internet, web, uploading files to a web site, configuring a web site, etc. The more you understand these concepts the easier you will understand Reunion's web publishing features. Plenty of tutorial information is available online via Google searching.

Most of the reports Reunion creates can be output in a format ready to be published on the web. Reunion does not send or upload anything directly to the web. Instead, it creates a folder with a collection of HTML, CSS, and image files linked together. This "web folder" is what you'll need to upload to your web space in order to share your information on the web.

Why Publish on the Web?

Why publish on the web? In a word: sharing. By making your report available "on the internet," it becomes available to anyone with whom you wish to share (assuming they have a computer or a smart phone/device).

Sharing With Everybody

If you publish a public link to the "contents page" of your report (for example, by putting a link on your home page, or by posting a link on Twitter or FaceBook) it's only a matter of time before a search engine (like Google) crawls through and indexes the data in your report. When this happens, anyone in the world can search for a name of similar interest, and may wind up browsing through your report.

Sharing With a Limited Audience

If you have a more specific audience — for example, just one person with whom you're collaborating or maybe you only wish to share your report with immediate family members — then you can email the link to your report and the report can remain private or hidden from the rest of the world (assuming your recipient doesn't publish the link somewhere else).

Protecting Your Data

It is your responsibility to decide...

Please understand that you'll need to make these decisions and implement whatever you decide by yourself, or with help from your web hosting provider or a friendly web guru. Reunion creates the reports, but it does not upload any data to the web and it doesn't communicate with or configure your web site. We can't provide technical support for uploading to, configuring, or password-protecting your web site.

Protecting Living People

It's also your decision and responsibility to protect the privacy of living individuals in any web output that is available to the public. Reunion can help in this regard, via built-in Privacy and Sensitivity Settings. Learn more.

Three Steps To Publish Reports Online

There are three basic steps to creating and publishing a report online...

  1. Create a report with a destination of Web File/Folder or your web browser.
  2. Using an app that can transfer files across the Internet (most-often apps using the File Transfer Protocol [FTP]), to upload the web folder to your web space. You need to decide where to put the web folder in your web space so you'll have an "address" that points to the contents page.
  3. Optionally, post the web address (URL) of the "contents" page or create a link to the contents page somewhere else, like on your overall home page. Or simply share (via email, text message, or social media) the URL of the contents page.

Here's an example...

  1. In Reunion, select Reports > Web Project and configure the report to include family cards. Then set the destination of the report to "Web Folder." Let's say you named the web folder MyFamilyCards and it's saved in the default location (your Documents/Reunion Files/Reports folder). The contents page inside that folder is: wc_toc.htm
  2. Using an FTP app, upload the MyFamilyCards folder to your web space at MyWebSpace.com, locating it inside the "doc" folder on your web space. The resulting URL or "link" to the table of contents page would be something like...
    http://MyWebSpace.com/doc/MyFamilyCards/wc_toc.htm
    Note that URLs are case-sensitive.
  3. Paste that URL/link into your web browser to see the pages online. Then email the URL/link to family members; or, create a link on your home page (using a web-authoring app) that points to the contents page.
What Does Reunion Create for the Web?

Reunion creates web reports and web projects — both are specifically designed to be viewed by a web browser:

  1. Web reports are renditions of standard genealogy reports saved in a format which is required for viewing with a web browser. For example, in days gone by you may have printed 100 different family group sheets for your relatives and then punched holes and put them all into a 3-ring binder for publishing. However, Reunion can create the same 100 family group sheets digitally and then you can put them on the web for anyone in the world to see (or just for your particular audience) — all at a fraction of the cost of traditional publishing.
  2. A web project is a report designed exclusively to be viewed with a web browser. It contains a group of related elements including family cards (similar to the family view in Reunion), trees (similar to ancestor charts), person sheets, multimedia, and other pages linked together, created simultaneously, and saved in one folder. Web projects are explained here.

How Do Web Reports and Web Projects Appear?

Reunion creates many different reports. The basic content and structure of any particular report will be consistent, regardless of destination. However, reports created for the web have special features and a presentation designed to take advantage of web browsing technology.

Reunion's web output utilizes "responsive design," meaning that reports with a destination of your web browser (or Web File/Folder) will appear optimized on whatever device (desktop, phone, tablet) is viewing them.

For example, the size of pictures in a web report will change, depending on the device on which they are being viewed. In the case of a desktop computer display, the size of browser's window will impact the picture sizes.

Likewise, the size of text and the wrapping of text will be optimized for the device where viewed. For example, a report page as it appears in a browser window on a desktop computer isn't simply squashed to fit on the iPhone. Instead, the page is reformatted for optimum readability and appearance on the iPhone.

Here is a page from a register report as it would appear on the iPhone, iPad, and Mac...

These examples use the web style "mint gradient." However, there are many different web styles to pick from. Learn more.

Web Reports

One important step in creating a report is choosing a destination. For example, when creating a person sheet, the Destination button appears in the Reports > Person Sheet panel, as shown below.

To create a report that can be viewed with a web browser and/or published online, click the Destination button and choose one of these two destinations...

In each case, nothing is uploaded to the web; rather, a web file/folder is created on your hard drive. By default it's located in the Documents/Reunion Files/Reports folder.

To learn more about report destinations, click here.

Web Files and Web Folders

A destination of "Web File" is available when sharing a sidebar or list. In this case, one HTML file is created. It contains the list, CSS elements, and related images — all embedded into a single file.

By contrast, a "Web Folder" destination is available when sharing more complex reports (for example, a register report or a series of family group sheets). The Web Folder is a collection of HTML, CSS, and image files linked together and saved in a folder on your hard drive. By default, it's located in the Documents/Reunion Files/Reports folder.

This folder is named just before the report is created. The web folder is what you'll eventually upload to your web space in order to publish your genealogy on the web.

Do not move or rename items inside a web folder.

The only difference between the destinations of "Web File/Folder" and "Safari" (or whatever your web browser is named) is the convenience of one extra, automatic step: opening the report in your browser so you can see it immediately. For example, a destination of Safari simply means that the web folder is created and the report is opened in Safari so you can see it right away. In either case, nothing is actually uploaded to the web; Safari is just reading the report that was saved on your hard disk.

Publishing Information Online

To publish a web folder online, you'll typically use an FTP app to upload the web folder to a web server. Your web host provider should provide instructions for uploading files using an FTP app. Please consult documentation from your web host provider and/or FTP app for instructions and help in uploading files/folders to your web server. This is not a service that we provide.

If you've created a "web file," then you have the additional, simpler option to attach the web file to an email message, an easy way to share a list, for example, without publishing online.

Updating a Web Folder Online

In most cases, it's easier and more efficient to simply re-create a web report and upload it to your web server, replacing the old copy.

Minor changes
If the changes to your web report are very minor, such as adding a birth date or place, you can...

  1. Open the relevant page in a text editor or web-authoring app.
  2. Manually make the change(s).
  3. Upload the page using your FTP software so that the page lands in the correct folder on the web server.

Major changes
If you've made lots of changes to your data, you'll need to repeat the basic process: create the report and upload the web folder to your web server. If you take care to use the same name (for the web folder) and simply replace the existing folder on your web server, then existing links to your genealogy (for example, a link on your overall home page to your genealogy contents page) will still work properly.

How to Share Your Data Without Using the Web

If you want to share your family information with somebody who doesn't use genealogy app, and you prefer not to publish information on the web, you can still utilize Reunion's web reports/projects to share your information. Instead of sharing data on the web, you can use a file-sharing service like Dropbox (learn more) or copy the web folder onto a portable USB drive.

So, how does this work? How can we share family information with anybody who has a computer (any kind of computer), who doesn't have a genealogy app, without posting to the web, and without printing thousands of pages?

Here's the key: reports saved in a web-compatible format do not necessarily have to be used over the internet — they can also be saved on a cheap USB drive or copied to a file-sharing service like Dropbox. By doing so, users of Mac and Windows can enjoy your data, including pictures, sounds, and movies. The user only needs a web browser to "browse" your data: names, dates, multimedia, etc.

When used in this way, Reunion becomes a very powerful publishing tool for family histories. So, as you learn about Reunion's "web reports" and "web projects," keep in mind that reports can be shared without printing any paper or putting anything on a web site, and anybody with a computer can view them.