Re: Formatting issues in ancestor chart - take 2

The characters I use are all from the Windows 10 font Arial Unicode:
White bullet U25E6
Black heart U2665
dagger   U2020 

You hit the nail on the head with your observation that the vertical mis-alignment is linked with no death entry. I just ran a few experiments, and adding a blank death (just one space in the date) cured the problem each time.

I have no fear to upset those ancestors, unfortunately all mine have passed away. So that's the solution I'll use as needed.
My problem is solved, thank you so much!

----- Original Message -----
From: Adrian Davey <[email protected]>
To: Dan <[email protected]>
Date: Mon, 30 May 2022 11:50:19 +1000
Subject: Re: [Gramps-users] Formatting issues in ancestor chart - take 2

> Dan,
> 
> There are definitely potential alignment issues with some unicode 
> characters, especially the wingding ones (as well as the French accented 
> characters you have in names of some people & places, I have had to deal 
> extensively with all of the Scandinavian scripts).
> 
> If I run a test in a standard text document, inserting U2020 (dagger) 
> into a table cell, and also U2665 (one of the heart symbols, perhaps not 
> the particular one you are using?), the latter at the same point size 
> takes up more headroom, i.e. pushes the table cell floor downwards, 
> compared to e.g. the dagger or random text.
> 
> Note that every one of the examples in your jpeg which is aligned with 
> the text overlapping the upper edge of the box LACKS a death line.
> 
> So it is possible that simply forcing all our people to have at least a 
> blank death event might help. BUT I would not want to implement that in 
> my own database, as my practise is not to add even an empty death event 
> until either I suspect they might have died, or at least were born 
> before about 1930 (which is a bit of a moving target). I have never 
> wanted to have instances of charts distributed to elderly but still very 
> lively family members where even a blank "D: " on the chart might cause 
> unnecessary distress that we were waiting around for them depart!
> 
> Otherwise, try changing your symbols to characters limited to the old 
> ASCII set, e.g. @, #, *, +, -, and see if the alignment comes good?
> 
> If this indicates the wingdings are the problem, and you want to stick 
> with symbols, you could do worse than adopt + for birth, with any one of 
> minus or emdash or endash for death (personally, I think minus is too 
> short). You then need one "special" symbol for marriage, perhaps with an 
> additional one if you opt not to use the same for divorce.
> 
> I can report that of the unicode symbols, the following have not given 
> me alignment trouble: 00A7 (section sign), 00B1 (plus or minus), 0394 
> (delta), 2020 (dagger), 2021 (double dagger). I have discovered in the 
> past that some of the bullets and other symbols are problematic, e.g. I 
> have used 2295 (circle containing cross) and 2299 (circle containing 
> dot), but they sometimes caused issues.
> 
> You may be amused to know I too have French ancestors, though I have not 
> reconnected with contemporaries there yet--courtesy of a 
> great-grandfather born Guernsey, and his partner, though Dublin-born, 
> with a mother from a very long Guernsey & Norman lineage ...)
> 
> Adrian Davey
> Canberra AUSTRALIA
> 
> 


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