A thought from a newbie, sorry if it has been aired before. Would it be possible, as an option, to amend the order in which the data for deaths is keyed in. If the order was:-- surname/first name/district/page/age then the typing of the letters and numbers would be grouped together in their respective parts of the keyboard. In that way the time spent relocating the hands on the keyboard when going from letters to numbers and back, would be reduced. I get the feeling that it would save about 5% in time. regards, jim wishart

On Fri, 26 Sep 2003 20:26:20 +0100, you wrote: >A thought from a newbie, sorry if it has been aired before. >Would it be possible, as an option, to amend the order in which the data for >deaths is keyed in. >If the order was:-- surname/first name/district/page/age then the typing of >the letters and numbers would be grouped together in their respective parts >of the keyboard. In that way the time spent relocating the hands on the >keyboard when going from letters to numbers and back, would be reduced. I >get the feeling that it would save about 5% in time. But the indexes that you are keying *from* aren't in that order! I suspect that any improvement in speed would be at the expense of accuracy as people keyed data in a different order to that in which it appeared in the original, and FreeBMD puts MUCH greater store in getting it right than doing it fast. Your suggestion would work well if our transcription was being done by experienced key-to-disk operators, but for amateurs accuracy is more likely if we maintain the same order. -- Dave Mayall

I always transcribe down the page rather than across which I find a lot quicker and gets round this problem. Say there are 15 entries of the scan visible on my PC then I will first do the names working down the page for these 15 entries, then the age at deaths, then the districts and finally the page numbers. Regards, David Lang -----Original Message----- From: wishart100.freeserve.co.uk [mailto:james@wishart100.freeserve.co.uk] Sent: 26 September 2003 20:26 To: FREEBMD-DISCUSS-L@rootsweb.com Subject: Transcribing deaths, order of keying A thought from a newbie, sorry if it has been aired before. Would it be possible, as an option, to amend the order in which the data for deaths is keyed in. If the order was:-- surname/first name/district/page/age then the typing of the letters and numbers would be grouped together in their respective parts of the keyboard. In that way the time spent relocating the hands on the keyboard when going from letters to numbers and back, would be reduced. I get the feeling that it would save about 5% in time. regards, jim wishart ______________________________