Contents - Index

Interview Report

The Interview Report contains over 1200 questions in thirteen different categories that can be used when you interview a family member.  They are great at jogging the memory of the person being interviewed and elicit more in-depth responses.


The Interview Report is reached by choosing Other Reports from the Reports tab of the Ribbon bar and then choosing Interview Questions.

Interview Language
The interview questions are available in English and several other languages.  To select a different language, click the down arrow to the right of the combo box labeled, Select a language you want to use for the interview.  If the desired language is not in the list, you can download any of the available files from the Legacy web site.

Interview Title
In the Title field, enter the name of the interview.  This title prints at the top of the report.



Interview Types
There are thirteen interviews to choose from.  Each interview type represents several subtopics, and each subtopic contains anywhere from 18 to 25 specific questions.  To expand an interview type so that you can see its topics, click the plus sign  to the left of the interview name. 



Interview Topics



Interview topics break a specific interview into manageable pieces and deal with only a specific part or aspect of a person's life.  Each topic contains one or more questions about the topic.  To expand a topic to show its questions, click the plus sign  to its left.

Interview Questions
The interview questions are meant to spark the memories of the person being interviewed so that he or she remembers many of the interesting details of his or her life.

Selecting the Questions to Include
You can include all the questions that come with a topic or you can pick and choose the ones you want.  (You can also add your own questions.  This is described a little further on.)  To select all the questions in a specific topic, check the box to the left of the topic title.



When you do this, all the questions within that topic are also checked.  You can then uncheck specific questions individually if you want to.  If you uncheck the box of a topic, all the questions for that topic are unchecked.

If you know that you want all the questions for small group of topics, it is easiest to just click the topic title boxes.

If you want all the questions for all the topics of a particular interview type, just click the checkbox to the left of the interview type name.



You can then uncheck any topics or questions that you don't want to include on the report.

How Many Blank Lines?
When an interview report is printed a certain number of blank lines are printed for each question.  Legacy has set the default number of blank lines for each question.  This is displayed below the question list as you highlight each question.  You can change the number for any question.

Adding Your Own Interviews and Questions
If you would like to add your own interview types, topics or questions, you can easily do so.  

To add a new interview type:
1. Click on any existing interview type and then click the Add Interview Type button.  You are prompted for the name of the new interview.  The new type is then added to the bottom of the current list.  You will notice that there is no plus sign to the left of it.  
2. Highlight the new interview type and then click Add Type or Topic.  This pops up a submenu where you choose Add New Topic.
3. Enter the topic name.
4. To continue adding more topics, highlight the topic name you just added and then click Add Topic or Question.  From the submenu, choose Add new Topic.
5. When you have finished adding topics, click on the first new topic and then click the Add Topic or Question button.  From the submenu, choose Add new Question.
6. On the Interview Questions screen, type in your question in the upper text box and any ideas or prompts in the lower box.  

If you want more than the default 2 blank lines, change the number as desired.  When you are finished, click Save.  The new question is added to the list.

You can now continue adding questions to the topics of your new interview type by repeating steps 5 and 6 above.

Editing the Questions
You can change the wording of any question or any idea prompts by highlighting the question and then clicking Edit Question.

Deleting a Question
To delete a question, highlight it and then click the Delete Question button.

Expanding and Collapsing the Interview Groups
If you want to quickly expand all the interview types so that you can see the topics for all of them, click the Expand Group button.  To close all the topics and only show the interview types, click Collapse Group.

Cover Page
When you print the interview report, it is nice to have a cover sheet that indicates who is being interviewed, who is doing the interviewing, and when and where it is being done.

To create a cover page, click the Cover Page tab.  Fill in the desired fields and comments.  Be sure to put a checkmark in the Include Cover page on report options.

Permissions Page
Another important consideration before doing the actual interview is to obtain permission to use the information you collect during the interview.  By means of a simple release form, you insure both the integrity and continuity of an oral history project and safeguard each interviewee's rights.

To include a Permissions page on your report, click the Permission tab.  A default permission form is included with Legacy that you are welcome to use.  You can make any changes you feel appropriate.  (If you have made changes to the form and want to go back to the default wording, click the Reset button.)  Make sure you put a checkmark on the Include Permission page on report option.

Saving Sets of Questions

You can save your interview questions in two different formats.  

1. The first is the format Legacy uses to store the questions so that they can be reloaded and used again the in future.  To save this format, click the Save Questions button and then enter a name and where you want to store them.  The file extension for this type of format is .ivw.

2. The second format is as a standard text file.  It can be loaded into a word processor or text editor (or a Legacy event note field) where you can then type in the answers that are given for the questions.  To save this format, choose the Text File option in the Output Options box.  Then click the Create button in the upper-right corner of the window and then enter a name and where you want to store them.  The file extension for this type of format is .txt.

If you want to save the results of your interview in an event for the person in your family file:
1. Save the interview to a text file.
2. Conduct the interview, either by typing the replies into your word processor or text editor as you go, or my transcribing the answers later into your word processor.
3. Open your interview file with either a word processor or text editor.
4. Highlight the entire interview document (usually by pressing Ctrl-A) and then Copy it to the Window Clipboard (usually by pressing Ctrl-C).
5. Open your family file and navigate to the record of the person interviewed.
6. Start a new event and call it something like Interview.
7. Click in the Notes field and Paste the interview text there (usually by pressing Ctrl-V).
8. Save the event.

Loading Sets of Questions
To load a set of questions that you have previously saved, click the Load Questions button and specify the set of questions you want to load.

Print the Interview Report

The interview report can be printed in different ways. These are controlled by the settings in the Report Destination box in the lower-right corner of the window. The output can be set to:
  • Screen/Printer
  • Text File
  • PDF File

    Produce the report in a print preview window
    Using the Screen/Printer option in the Report Destination box, click Preview to see the report before committing it to paper. You can view each page and see how it looks. If you find something you want to change, simply close the preview window, change the desired option(s), and then preview it again. When everything looks correct, print it on paper.

    Print directly to your printer
    When you are confident of the output format, send the report directly to the printer by clicking Print.


    Note:  The report settings for the Interview report are saved in a file called Interview.usr in the [My Documents]\Legacy Family Tree\_AppData\Usr\ folder.

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