family tree "drawing"

[Albanwraig]

Could people please advise me as to which programme is best to use to prepare a visual representation of family trees for publication?
I have the data entered in PAF5.
I have very complicated trees over 15 generations.
I wish to be able to include illegitimate children of both single mothers and fathers.
I also want to be able to show the mothers and fathers of spouses in multiple marriages.
It is local history that we are working on and I would need to show the families in drop down form. [I have done family history reseach for many years on my own family, but I have never needed to print it out as a tree]
The intention is to have the finished book in A5 size.
Thank you for your time

[Guest]

I would use TreeDraw from Spansoft. The program will create charts from Gedcom files. It is possible to create composite charts of related sets of ancestors and descendants and to amend/add to/delete from and part of the chart.

Charts can be set up for printing on a large single sheet of you can create a number of related small charts if you wish to print out on A4/A5 etc.

Graham

[Guy Etchells]

I doubt if any family history program will draw a 15 generation tree in A5. (or even in A4 as a center fold).

I have a very basic 15 generation tree on my website (as a zip file) and it take four A4 sheets to print out.
http://freespace.virgin.net/guy.etchells/Guyline.htm

For A5 format I would suggest printing a number of sections of the tree relevant to the individual discussed in the adjacent text
Cheers
Guy

[malcolm]

The intention is to have the finished book in A5 size.

As has been said, that makes it a very tall order!

In general, certainly for poster size displays, GENBOX is the bees' knees for presentation work. There are lots of options (almost too many!) and individuals or groups can be dragged around to your own taste.

On A5, even using a double page as A4, you are likely to have to break things up into small groups with links between them.

Malcolm.

[Creighton]

PAF5 is well able to deal with composite charts as I have used this myself. You can create smaller family group trees, but as others have stated here, you won't get the whole lot on an A5 or A4 page - it will span many pages that you will need to stitch into a wall chart or something.

[ralph_smith]

PAF is readable for 15 generations on an A4 sheet, without siblings. A5 would not be in my opinion.

If you find something that works please let us know.

[Albanwraig]

Thanks to all of you who have replied to the question. I will try out the suggestions and report back in a few months!