Charts — Positioning and Width

A quick way to reduce a chart’s width is to adjust the position and width of individual people. When you select a person in editing mode, grey buttons appear around their box:

Width controls

+ and - either side of the box make the person wider or narrower.
A returns to automatic width (shown only when width has been overridden).

Position controls

<< and >> move the parent(s) left or right, snapping above children.
< and > give smaller position adjustments.
C centres the parents above their children.

Children width

The + and - buttons below the family line change the default width of all children in the family (unless an individual child’s width has already been manually set).

Keyboard shortcuts

Key	Action
+	Make person wider
-	Make person narrower
Left / Right	Move parent left/right (large step)
Shift+Left / Shift+Right	Move parent left/right (small step)
C	Centre above children
Home	Move above leftmost child
End	Move above rightmost child
Shift+ + / -	Make children wider/narrower

Reducing width

Charts with many siblings tend to be too wide. The following pages cover several techniques for managing this: stacking siblings, curl back, staggering, bunching, double drops, and more.