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Customize - Data Entry



The Data Entry settings are reached by choosing Customize from the Options tab on the Ribbon bar and then clicking on the Data Entry option on the menu panel.   (See Customize Options for a summary of the customization options.)

2.1 When Adding and Editing Information
Verify NEW Names, Locations, and Events
Legacy asks for verification whenever you enter a name, location, or event that it has not seen before.  This is a good way to catch spelling errors.

Jump to Notes When Saving Individual
Automatically displays the Notes window each time you save an individual's information.  This is a good way to be reminded to enter notes as new information is added and changed.

Jump to Marriage Info When Adding a Spouse
Automatically displays the Marriage Information  window each time you add a new spouse to an individual.  This is a good way to be reminded to enter the marriage information.

Check for Problems when saving individual
Checks for problems like christening before birth, death before birth, burial before death.

Verify USA Counties in Place Names
Checks to make sure any county names entered for US locations were valid in the time frame they are being used.  See US County Verifier.

Add a Default Surname when Adding a New Father or Child
Automatically fills in the surname field of a child with the father's surname - or fills in the father's surname with the child's surname.

Check for Duplicates while Adding New Individuals
Checks to see if there are other individuals in the family file who might be duplicates of the person you are currently adding.  See Quick Duplicate Options for more information.

2.2 When Adding New Spouses, Children, and Events
When you are adding or editing spouses, children, and events, if the person or event includes a date, Legacy can insert them into chronological order between any other existing people or events.   (For a complete explanation of how this works, see How Legacy Inserts People and Events into Chronological Order.)

2.3 What Age to Presumed a Person is Dead
If there is a date or location in the Died or Buried fields, Legacy automatically sets the Living field to NO.  If, however, there are no entries in these fields but it can be ascertained from the birth or christening dates that the person is probably not still alive, Legacy can set the Living field to NO automatically, following certain rules.  By default, Legacy asks if a person is dead when they are over 90 years old but under 120 years old.  If they are over 120 years old, Legacy automatically sets the Living field to NO.  You can change these threshold values by using the Up and Down arrows on the appropriate value.  You can also have Legacy run through the current family file and update the Living field to the current settings by clicking the Apply button.  (See Advanced Set Living for more information on automatically setting this tag for existing people in your file that have no birth or death dates but are certainly older than 120 years.)

2.4 Text Formatting Codes
Lets you highlight text within a note-type field and add the surround codes for bold, italic, underlined, and superscript by pressing Ctrl-B, Ctrl-I, Ctrl-U, and Ctrl-S.  These codes are then honored when producing report output.

2.5 Enter Key Behavior
The tab key is the default method for moving the cursor from one field to the next in Windows.  Pressing the enter key selects the default command in the current window, which is the button with the heavy black border surrounding it.  Many people, however, would like to have the enter key move the cursor sequentially from one field to the next and would like to click the command buttons only with the mouse.

Select the option you would like to use by selecting the appropriate option.

2.6 Field Entry Highlight Behavior
When the cursor enters an input field, you can have the cursor placed at the beginning of the field ready to insert new characters or you can have the current contents of the field highlighted so that a new entry replaces the current entry..

2.7 Ancestor and Descendant Interest
You can turn ON or OFF the displaying of the Ancestor and Descendant Interest tags on the Information screen, depending on if you want to use them or not.

2.8 Rule for generating default married names
When a couple is married, in most cases one or both of the individuals involved change their names.  This is usually the wife but in some case the husband's name will change.  Choose a default rule from the combo box.  When you add a new marriage, Legacy automatically makes the married name changes and displays them in the Husband's married name and Wife's married name fields on the Marriage Information screen.  If you select None - don't generate married names, the married name fields remain blank.

Saving Your Settings as Future Default Values
You can save the option settings you have selected to be future User-Defaults.  See How Legacy Saves Option Settings for more information.

Changing the Settings Back to Their Default Values
You can change the customize options back to their default settings.  See  How Legacy Saves Option Settings for more information.

For information on the other sections in the Customize area, see:
General Settings
Data Format
Data Defaults
Dates
Locations
Sources
View
Colors
Fonts
Launch
Other Settings

(See Where to Find an Option for a complete, alphabetized list of each available option and where to find it.)

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