How to start using Heredis 2017

1 Prepare your family history

First, check your research is in good order – part of this involves choosing which photos will be displayed in your book. Browse to a person’s entry, then double- click their photo. Select your chosen photo from the list and click the star button to make it the favourite.

2 Choose your book type

Click the ‘Books’ button in the main toolbar to open the layout wizard. First, choose the type of book you wish to create – we’re using the ‘Genealogical dictionary’ option (A-Z), but there’s a ‘Patronymic’ option (people grouped around their eldest male ancestor) too.

3 Choose a template

Five basic templates are provided, offering a choice of layouts, stylistic differences (fonts and colours) and where notes and references are displayed: either within the text itself, as footnotes at the bottom of each page or endnotes at the end of the document.

5 Fine-tune your book

The detailed view provides five tabs to work through: use the ‘Structure’ tab to tweak the header/ footer sections, plus filter what data is shown. You can exclude private data, plus limit your dictionary to a specific surname, place or letter range (such as B- H, for example).

7 Edit in a word processor

Heredis will generate a .doc file containing your book’s contents (the file is stored inside the Documents\ BSD Concepts\ Heredis\ Heredis Genealogy Reports folder), then open it in your word processor. Scroll down to add a dedication and introduction.

4 Simplified options

In a hurry? Change the default position of your notes if required, then give your cover a title, name and click the ‘+’ button to change the photo if you don’t like the one that’s been chosen. If, however, you’d like to fine-tune your book, click the ‘Detailed options’ button.

6 More options

Add a subtitle via the ‘Front cover’ tab, then choose what details to include – and how they’re presented – using the ‘Persons’ and ‘Events’ tabs. Fine-tune the look of your book – font, size, colour schemes and so on – from the ‘Style’ tab. When you’re done, click ‘Edit’.

8 Keep on editing

You can now edit this document using your word processor – make minor edits to the text, change images and so on. If there are more major alterations required, consider ditching this document and starting again in Heredis, trying a different set of options this time.