> > I'm interested in what people do on this one. > > > > Suppose you output a report from your favourite genealogical program > > in say DOC or RTF format because you want to put it through some > > manual editing in a word processing program. > > > > What is it you want to do? Is it to tweak the content (sounds a bit > > dubious - why wasn't it right in the first place)? Or perhaps you > > want to massage the appearance in some way. > > > > Any comments on your experiences would be appreciated. > > > > Peter J Seymour > > This very very general question is rather irrelevant unless we know > what program you are using, what you expect to do or what problems > you are encountering. .... > bob gillis In clarification, I engage in family history research in a small way (ie for my extended family) and I engage in software development again I suppose in a small way where I have my own genealogical program. I invited the discussion because I am trying to get a better grip on the output requirements for such a program. Suitable output requirements depend first of all on who the user is - amateur, professional, beginner, experienced and so on. Beyond that there seem to be some definite modes of output for reports: -- screen -- printer -- plain text file for subsequent ad-hoc data processing -- pdf file for subsequent viewing/printing -- rtf (etc) file for word processing -- csv file (where the data is appropriate) -- image (jpg etc) -- webpage (I'm not keen on this one, it is too easy to do inappropriate publishing) I have been trying to get a better grip on some of the more detail points among all this. The comments made by various posters have been quite helpful. Peter www.gendatam.com Peter J Seymour <mozng@pjsey.demon.co.uk>