I get asked a lot about typing life histories, both present day and for ancestors past.  Most people want to use Microsoft Word to create these documents.  The first thing I tell people is that Word is a word processing program not a publishing program.  It is cumberson when it comes to creating different headers/footers and page numbers in a document.  Now before all of you Word useres are up in arms, yes it can be done, but it is daunting for a beginner or even an experienced user.

If you want a really good publishing program that is easy to use then get yourself a program called WordPerfect 7 put out by Corel.  This is the program I favor and the one I will be giving instructions for today.  At a later date I will be posting the instructions to create a Family History Template in Word, but today I am posting the instructions for creating and using a WordPerfect Template to publish a Family History.  These instructions are in  a pdf form you can download, open and print.

A template is designed one time and then used over and over again so that you don’t have to create the margins, headers/footers, title page, columns and formatting repeatedly.  Once the template is created, just open it up anytime  you want to type a history and all the formatting work is already done!  There will be more on templates in future, but for right now —

Happy Publishing!

Instructions for Making a Family History Template in WordPerfect 

How to Use the Template in WordPerfect