Make your own pedigrees
Written by Karen Newberry

Looking for a blank pedigree to fill out?

Help! Only part of the pedigree prints out!

Making your own pedigrees online is easy, if you have a website and some knowledge of HTML it is simple to create beautiful pedigrees online. You should be familiar with HTML and also very familiar with setting up tables using HTML...if you use a web publishing tool, and you can set up tables with that, then you can make your own pedigrees also.
First, you need to set your page up using tables, the tables that you put the pedigree information in is visible, the other tables are invisible, I have the background pink in some of the tables, that's so that you can see the "visible" tables where you will input your pedigree information more easily:

That page shows how you will set the table up, and what height and width to use for each of your "little" tables.
Basically, you are making the entire pedigree 1 huge table and all the pedigree information (the "little" tables) will be enclosed within the 1 huge table. Also, your table has just 4 columns, you will start from the top of each column and enter the data that way you will start at the top and enter the data in to the end of the column....If you looked at the table and dimensions and set up plan and it looked totally foreign to you, you will have to learn how to use tables in HTML and I will get to that later.
Here are 2 blank pedigrees that you can print out and fill in....if you want something special or specific...an image or your rabbitry name, let me know and I will alter the blank pedigree and post the pedigree somewhere on this website. Also, these pedigrees were put together using Netscape Navigator browser, the tables are not set up right if you have Internet Explorer...if you have an IE browser, I will get a "Make your own pedigree" tutorial set up for you at a later date..

Once you remove the borders from around the "invisible tables" you will see the pedigree easily. You can also adjust the border size...on the example pedigrees I have border size "1" in the first row, border size "2" in the 2nd row, border size "3" in the 3rd row and border size "4" in the 4th row, as an example of different border sizes...you can use whichever you prefer or no border at all.

The only difference between the first and second pedigrees is that the borders were removed from around the "invisible" tables.

And here is the "final" pedigree with all the "invisible table" text removed:

The next step is to add your rabbitry name to the top of the pedigree...this is inside an invisible table. You will also have to specify the font and font size, I prefer to use verdana, I think it gives a very clean look to the pedigrees, the font of this text is arial, which also works well, helvetica is another good font to use for this, the font at the top of the page "make your own pedigrees" is comic sans ms....any plain font will work, if you use a cursive font or other fancy font, you won't be able to read the pedigree very well. I like to use the color red for font color for the reg, gc and wins information....You can also experiment with different fonts...if you have windows 95 you can click on the my computer icon on your desktop, then click on control panel and open the font folder and you will be able to view the different fonts that are installed on your computer. For my rabbitry name on my pedigree I used
font face="verdana" size="+3" for the rabbitry header.

Next you get to enter the data into your pedigree. You will put the information inside the "small visible tables". You will need to specify the font face, size, and color for each piece of information. In the following example...I used the following HTML code in the first row (the only data in the first row is for the rabbit that you are making the pedigree for...following each line of data by a break (br) so that the information you enter after the rabbits name will be on the next line and not right next to the name.

<"font face="verdana" size="1" color="black">SV's Roger JR

For the rabbit information you can type in whatever information you want on the pedigree...here is the code that I used for the next few lines below Roger JRs name.

font face="verdana" color="#606060" size="1"
COLOR:/font
font face="verdana" color="black" size="1"
Chinchilla/font
br

What you are doing here is indicating the font type, size and color and then ending the font color after the "color" box and changing the font color to black and typing in the color of the rabbit. The next few lines are done exactly the same way, you just substitue DOB:, WEIGHT:, EAR#:, SEX:, REG#:, GC#: and WINS: for color....using a grey font color and then typing in the data using a black font color. You can use different font colors..you don't have to use grey and black.

Next you add the sire info the same as you entered Roger JRs info, followed by the dam's info. Those are the only 2 animals in the 2nd row....You will be starting at the top of the row and entering data from the top down. Skipping the "invisible boxes". You enter the 3rd column or row...the grandsires starting with the sires sire and dam and then the dam's sire and dam. Do the same for the 4th column or row...the great grand sires and dams.

Entering your information: In the last invisible table you can enter your own address, phone, city and state and any other information you want...just set up the data in columns...on my example I use 3 table columns or (td)....the first with my name, address, etc., the 2nd column I leave blank but specify that the dimensions of the "empty" column is 250 X 6 the 3rd column, I put my membership information in it. Also, I change the font size to 0.

The last column to fill in is the "certification" box, I center the data and fill in...you can put whatever you want or delete this table altogether.

EXTRAS

Adding Pictures: You can add a picture to your pedigree, you can put it in any "invisible" table area, you will want the picture to be about the same size as a column (150-160 for width), or else it will not fit or look right in the table. Make sure you have permission for any pictures you use, I am always a little bit shocked (and flattered) to see one of my pictures on someone elses website...other people might have a reaction closer to rage! You can also put clip art on your pedigree the same way as a picture. In this pedigree I put the img file in the "invisible" table right below the litter info in the first row.

You can also add a border easily enough, just put the border size to "1" on the first "huge" table border...the one right below your rabbitry name. Here I used border size "2" but you can change that up or down to suit your taste. Just make sure that you enclose whatever you want inside the table--the pedigree name, and the pedigree information and make sure that you end the table, /td /tr /table.

Or you can take set all table borders to "0" and underline the name of the rabbit, I think that the pedigree with no borders would be good to use for a 5 generation pedigree

5 Generation Pedigree

on the 5 generation pedigree you use the same format except that all table widths were "150" and in print setup or print properties (where you adjust the margins and preferences for your printer) the right and left margins MUST be set to 0.0, there is one invisible table (width="150" height="5")at the very bottom of the 5th generation column.

Adding Data outside & below the table

If you want to add data outside the table, it is simple to just put the information inside the "invisible" table below the rabbit that you want to include the info on.

Other

You can also go to any stationary store or walmart, meijers, etc. and buy paper with designs on it and you can print your pedigrees out on that...it just adds an extra special touch. I will scan a couple of examples of pedigrees on specialty paper later and post them on here.

Printing problems
If the entire pedigree does not print out when you print a pedigree, you will have to go to print properties or page setup and make the margins 0.1 or 0.0.
The reason is that the printer will only print complete tables, if there is not enough room the printer will leave off what it can't fit on 1 page....adjusting the print margins should fix the problem
If that doesn't work then you may need to adjust the height of each table. Decrease the height of each table by "5"...e.g. if the height="150" adjust it to "145" you will need to do this to ALL the tables to see any change, and you should go back and doublecheck each table as they are easy to miss.

If you have any questions or find any bugs....Email me and I will try to answer them or fix them..

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