Adding Callouts
Callouts are like thought balloons in a comic. There are various designs for call-outs including starbursts, clouds and rectangles. You can also add various effects to make them look three dimensional or tilted, etc. The nice thing about callouts is that you can adjust the line coming out of the shape to point to an exact spot – in my case, to the date on the Date Bar. To add a callout:
- From the Insert tab at the top, click on “Shapes” and then select the Callout shape you’d like from the choices.
- I chose a rectangle to keep it simple. Draw the callout by clicking and dragging the mouse into the desired dimensions. You can type your text immediately and then adjust the size of the callout to fit the text and the look you are going for.
- The yellow diamonds on the callout line allow you to adjust the line to point to the exact point on the timeline that you’d like by clicking and dragging the line wherever you’d like.
- Each callout can be formatted with color and other effects to bring attention to specific details. For example, I chose colors for my callouts that match the colors I chose in the location bar to quickly show which county the fact was from. You can add effects by selecting “Shape Fill” under the Format tab.
- You can add as many effects as you’d like to make the timeline look as 3-D or as simple as you’d like.
- After you have inserted all of your callouts, some of the lines may be in front of the boxes. To fix this, click on the callout and then under the “Format” tab, click on “Send to Back”.
There is no end to the number of effects you can add to your timeline. For myself, spending time working on the timeline sometimes brings details into focus or shows me new areas to research. It can show me areas where I’m making wrong assumptions and because I can add information for other family members as well, it can consolidate information in a way that makes sense visually as opposed to my notes which are filed by individual families.
I’d love to hear ideas of other things to include on a timeline!
This is something I’ve wanted to try now that I’ve gotten Exel.
It looks like your post will be a great help. It’ll take some what of a learning curve but at least I’ll be able put the program to good use. I agree with everything in your last paragraph. Wish me luck and Thanks
Les
I have been working on my family research off and on for about 30 years and I am so sick and tired of the loose leafs with paper and wanted to digitize my research and since I love to work with excel I had started to work up some sheets of my own when I said to myself surely someone else has already done it and probably better then I can thus I arrived here on your blog. I can’t wait to try out this timeline and I am thinking I might try to incorporate it as a template for each of the family sheets this way as I find new information the timeline will fill itself in. I’ll let you know how it works out and thanks for the sheets and the how to create this timeline.
I’d learned the basics of Excel about 30 years ago, but I left it behind when I left that job and didn’t foresee any further use for it in my life. Ha!
Just this week, after several years of fruitless searching for a non-cloud financial-management program, I realized that I could design one for myself (somehow), using Excel. Excited at the prospect I began searching for clues to get me started, and somehow my passion for genealogy merged with my determination to get my financial life in order and presto, your site appeared.
You’ve given me inspiration and practical instruction tonight and I feel grateful. Yours is a beautiful and impressive site. Thank you so much for sharing!
Patrice
Thank you Patrice! You are so kind! I am glad to know that you are finding information that you think will help with your research! I have several videos about using Excel in the Video Tutorials tab at the top, if you find that kind of thing helpful.
Good luck with your research!
Lisa