Yesterday, Ancestral Author Plus 3.1.15 was released. This is a major/extensive update to Ancestral Author – the last update was nearly a year ago, in September of 2023.
Ancestral Author is a genealogy utility that allows you to create genealogical documents and reports from GEDCOM files, images, text, etc. with a drag-and-drop interface, utilizing the PDF or ODT (Open Document Text) file formats, which can then be used for books, printed reports, etc. The generated documents can contain Title Pages, Tables of Contents, Name Indexes, hyperlinked Descendant Reports, Ancestor Reports, Source Citations, Image Galleries,
It can be downloaded at Ancestral Softworks. If you are trying the software out and haven’t paid ($34.95) there will be watermarks on the generated documents, but you will be able to see how everything works.
Both the Windows and Mac versions have the same features and same version number. It will run on Windows 7 – Windows 11 or macOS 10.13 or later.
Developer’s Note: New phrases have been added to the phrases file. If you have modified your phrases, you will need to update the phrases before creating a PDF or ODT file. To do so, select menu item Phrases – Update.
| Ancestral Author Plus 3.1.15 Changes | |
| Added: In previous releases of AA+, Level 1 headings would always appear in the top of page header. Starting with this release, an option is available in the ‘Heading Document Item’ dialog that allows the user to omit Level 1 headings from the top of page header, for PDF output only. | |
| Every Person Reports now allow users to specify a Root Individual. Prior to this release, the Root Individual was always the person in the GEDCOM with the largest number of descendants, and could not be changed. With this release, the Root Individual can optionally be specified. The report will start with the Root Individual, then proceed to the descendants of the Root Individual, then all other individuals in no particular order. | |
| Standard html hyperlinks of the form <a href=”target URL”>linked text</a>; have always been supported by AA+ in text files. In this release, support for a new type of hyperlink has been added to text files. Specifically, text files can now include hyperlinks to headings in the AA+ output document. These hyperlinks can also appear in GEDCOM note records. For more info, open help, then navigate to Ancestral Author->Document Items-> Import Text File and/or Multiple Image Files-> Text FileFormatting Tags. Then click on the Hyperlinks to Headings link. | |
| The output text of AA+ will identify the parents of an individual (particularly spouses) if the parents are known. The phrasing for this has changed in this revision of AA+. Instead of phrasing that looks like this: John Doe married Jane Smith in Massachusetts. She was the daughter of Bob Smith and Mary Jones. Jane Smith was was born 8 July 1947 in Rhode Island. It now looks like this: John Doe married Jane Smith in Massachusetts. Jane Smith was born 8 July 1947 in Rhode Island, the daughter of Bob Smith and Mary Jones. This form is slightly more economical, and results in fewer duplicate source citations. As a result of this change, four phrases have been replaced with new phrases. This will only impact users who have modified their phrases file. The replaced phrases and their new counterparts are: DAUGHTER -> DAUGHTER_OF SON -> SON_OF SON_WITH_UNKNOWN_PARENT -> SON_OF_WITH_UNKNOWN_PARENT DAUGHTER_WITH_UNKNOWN_PARENT -> DAUGHTER_OF_WITH_UNKNOWN_PARENT If you have modified your phrases file, please update your phrases after installing this version of AA+. To do this automatically, select menu item Phrases->Update. You will also have to manually remove the following phrases (selecting menu item Phrases->Modify): DAUGHTER SON SON_WITH_UNKNOWN_PARENT DAUGHTER_WITH_UNKNOWN_PARENT | |
| Added: The parents of the root individual in a descendant report are now identified in the output text. | |
| On Windows, previous versions of AA+ did not warn you about an open ODT document when pressing the ‘Create ODT’ button. This would cause the old version of the document to be deleted, and the new version written, without updating LibreOffice or OpenOffice to display the new version. Besides causing confusion, this could result in the loss of the newly generated ODT file. It is always advisable to close the ODT file before pressing the ‘Create ODT’ button in AA Plus. This is done with LibreOffice menu item File->Close. | |
| A few other bugs were fixed. |