Making a staggered relative chart

[Yvonne D]

In a top-to-bottom relative chart I am trying to find a way to lower every alternate child (in a family with 10 children) so that I can move the remaining children closer together, i.e., lowering child 2, 4, 6, etc so that child 1, 3, 5, 7, etc can be moved closer. This would result in a narrower chart but keeping the traditional top-to-bottom orientation. I prefer this to the other options of a left-to-right orientation or reducing the type size. Simply lowering the child's box (to increase the length of the connecting line) only works if the child is immediately beneath the parent. If the child is one of the outer boxes, the connecting line has L-bends overlapping the other children. Moving the parent left or right so it is above each child that I want to lower does not work either. This 'staggered' arrangement could be achieved is a drawing programme such as Adobe Illustrator but is it possible in Reunion?

[ttl]

Re: Making a staggered relative chart

Try selecting all the children by shift-clicking on each one or by dragging across all, and then choose the Vertical Uniform line style for them from the tool bar on the left side of the chart editor window.

[ttl]

Re: Making a staggered relative chart

Also, in case you haven't found the feature, you can line up the lower tier of children that you've moved downward very nicely by selecting them all (do not include any from the upper tier), and choosing from the menu Object->Align->Top. Once they're all aligned (and still selected), you can adjust their position as a group by clicking and dragging up or down on one of them.

[Yvonne D]

Re: Making a staggered relative chart

Try selecting all the children by shift-clicking on each one or by dragging across all, and then choose the Vertical Uniform line style for them from the tool bar on the left side of the chart editor window.

Thank you Tim. That has worked and with some sideways moving of the boxes I have got the chart looking as I wanted. I knew how to align boxes (as your second reply), but I did not know about the Vertical Uniform feature. Or rather, I had seen it but did not understand what it could do! So thank you again.
Yvonne