Excerpt from a Past Family Tree Maker technical call:

Genealogist: “I have this report in my genealogy program and am trying to export it into my word processor. But when I copy and paste, all I get is the text. The formatting—proper spacing, tabs, etc.—are all lost.”

Technical Support: “Yes, you are correct. You will have to reformat that report once you paste it into that word processor document. Perhaps in a later version . . .”

Family Tree Maker’s Solution:

The past two releases of Family Tree Maker offered many improvements; ease of work with Genealogy Reports and Books were two of the biggest. While a major feature has been implemented within the program which compiled and indexed your trees, reports, and stories into a Family Book, the new version also makes it easier to export reports you want to include in other genealogy projects to a word processor without losing original formats. Rather than simply using an ASCII file format (which retains only text without formatting such as bold, underlines, or specific fonts), Family Tree Maker now offers exportation of your reports to the “.rtf” format, which preserves the report’s unique style.

“RTF” stands for “Rich Text Format.” Basically, the “Rich” indicates that this file format retains the entire look of the report, including proper spacing between generations and tabs between certain pieces of information. What you see on the screen in Family Tree Maker is what comes out into your word processor.

The five Family Tree Maker reports which support the .rtf export format are the three Genealogy Reports (Ahnentafel, Register and NGS), the Documented Events Report and the Bibliography Report. The Genealogy Reports, implemented in version 3.4, show your lineage, various pieces of information about individuals, and source documentation—all in a narrative format. Exporting Genealogy Reports in the .rtf format was implemented in version 3.4. New to version 4.0 are the Documented Events and Bibliography Reports. The Documented Events Report includes event types, dates, and any documentation which you have provided. For example, you could list all marriages, births, and deaths along with their indicated source for one branch of your family. A Bibliography Report shows you one clear summary of all your sources using whatever lines or individuals you choose.

It is easy to export any of these reports into the .rtf format. First, create the report you wish to export. When that report is on the screen, choose from the File menu the report you are exporting, either “Export Report” or “Export Genealogy Report.” The automatic default for saving your file is to the Family Tree Maker directory using the .rtf format. Simply type in an appropriate name for your .rtf file (perhaps call it your last name with an abbreviation of the report; for example, I used “mietzbib” when I did a bibliography of the Mietz family). Click “Save” (or “OK” in Windows 3.1) and the report will be created. Start your word processor. To open the exported report, go to the “File/Open” menu in the word processor and change the format to “.rtf”. Locate the Family Tree Maker report by name, select “Open,” and you will see an exact replica of your report on your screen that you may use wherever you wish!

Heather Mietz is the technical support supervisor at the Banner Blue Division of Brøderbund Software; she regularly assists users to make the most of their genealogy software. She also writes technical and informational columns for the Family Tree Maker newsletter and FamilyTreeMaker.com.

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