Species360 Terms of Usetraining.isis.org/Documents/SPARKSHelp/Create a word … · Web view7900 International Drive, Suite 1040. Minneapolis, MN 55425 USA +1 651 447 5574 · fax:

7900 International Drive, Suite 1040Minneapolis, MN 55425 USA

+1 651 447 5574 · fax: +1 952 853 1280

Setup and Export a Report from SPARKS These instructions are primarily for Sparks versions 1.54 and later. - Open Sparks, pick Reports. Set up the report:

For a report of currently living animals sorted by institution. Under View Criteria, set Date Span to Start Date = 1 Jan 1700 and Stop Date = Yesterday,

as of the End of the Date Span. Set Living/Dead/LTF to Living by Date shown. You may wish to set a Geographic View to 'EUROPE' or 'N.AMERICA' or 'AUSTRALAS' as appropriate or to set an Association View (FED file) to ARAZPA or AZA or EAZA (see below).

Under Sort Order, pick Location-geographic (sorted by countries and states) or Location-alphabetic (sorted by the location mnemonics)

For a historical report of all animals. Under View Criteria, set Date Span to Start Date = 1 Jan 1700 and Stop Date =

Today, During the Date Span. (or 1970 - 2006 , or whatever Date Span is appropriate). Set Geographic View to 'EUROPE' or 'N.AMERICA' or 'AUSTRALAS' if appropriate.

Under Sort Order, pick Studbook Number or Birth/Hatch Date. Pick Studbook Report. Choose any extra columns of information that are appropriate:

House Name for mammals perhaps, tags for birds, transponders for all. If UDFs are available, choose Yes. Look at them and decide if you wish to include any. 2-4 extra columns are usually about the limit that will fit on a report, depending on the length of the data fields.

[Options: If you see the question "Obtain a separate report for each location", you may pick “Yes”. Sparks would create a separate studbook report for each institutional mnemonic in the entire database, including capture locations and dealers. If you wish to create a report for each of the zoos holding currently living animals only, set up a FED file containing only those mnemonics that you wish included.]

Send the report to File: Answer No to the question "Include Headers and Footers on each page." The exported report will include one header at the top of the document and one footer at the end, this allows easy formatting in Word.

Decide whether or not to include a location glossary. The glossary will include locations mentioned in the studbook report that you are creating at the moment - if you want a complete listing of all locations, then you will need to run a complete historical report. Generally if you include the location glossary, you should include contact names, which are usually the registrars' names.

Decide if you wish to include Loan information. If you answer Yes, Loan information will be in the report. If you say No, instead of printing "Loan to", Sparks will print "Transfer to". "Ownership to" transactions will not be included in the report. The report will be run, you will not see the report on the screen, and when complete, Sparks will return to the Reports menu. Exit from Sparks. It will ask "Save output to file rather than print?” answer Yes. Sparks will offer a box to type a report name. I suggest STUDBOOK, which is 8 characters long and has no spaces. Sparks will add ".txt" to whatever name you specify and close. The report will be put into the studbook folder unless you specify otherwise.

It is the mission of Species360 to facilitate international collaboration in the collection and sharing of information on animals and their environments for zoos, aquariums and related organizations.

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Formatting the final report in Word:

Please note that various versions of Word have slightly different menus. Look around as necessary to find the bits you need. Open the file in Word, do some basic re-formatting and change the file type to .DOC

Get into Word. Pick File > Open and browse to the file <studbook>.txt that is located in the \sparks\<your studbook> folder and chose it. Pick File > Page Setup. Choose Landscape format and possibly change the left and right margins to something smaller. Pick OK.

Set the font to Courier New, if it is not already. This font will allow the columns to line up correctly. Pick Edit > Select All. The entire document will be selected. The default font is 10. Change

the Font to 9 or 8 and see if the report columns now line up correctly. [It is possible to have picked more choices for house name, tag, tattoo, etc while setting up the report in Sparks than it is possible to fit on the report. If this is the case, you'll need to start over and pick fewer options.]

Pick File > Save As and change the File Name to whatever you like. Change the File Type (at the top of the drop-down list) to Word Document (*.doc). Do not assume that changing the name of the document to <something>.doc will be sufficient. If you do not do this step, all of the formatting changes you make will not be saved. As you work on the document, save often when you like the results.

Pick View > Print Layout so that you can see how the printed document will look while you are creating it. Detailed re-formatting:

Sections breaks: The studbook report is in 3 sections: a simple cover page, the animal data and the location glossary. Insert section breaks between each of the sections: Insert > Break > Section break > Next page. Now it is possible to have differing Headers and Footers (or none at all) in each section.

Inserting a header: Go to the animal data section. Block and copy the entire header. Pick View > Header & Footer. A dotted header box will appear. A small toolbar will also appear - in this toolbar, one of the icons, "Same as previous", will be in use already. VERY IMPORTANT! -> Click on it to turn this off! Otherwise, the header you are about to use will appear in every section of the studbook and overwrite any others that you may have already set up.

Click inside the dotted header box and paste the header you have already copied. Improve it: center some of the words, turn the scientific name into italics, perhaps turn some of it into boldface. In the upper right corner, it will say "Page 1". Erase the "1" and position the cursor where the page number should appear. In the toolbar, click on the icon for Insert Page Number. When you are happy with the appearance of the header, click on the Close button in the toolbar. Each page in this section will now have an identical header, and the page numbers will automatically appear.

Inserting a footer: Find the Footer at the bottom of the animal data and repeat this process. Remember to turn off the "Same as Previous" icon if you do not wish the footer to be in all the sections!

Other bits: The "currently living animals" version of the report may have dotted lines dividing the institutional data that are too long. Edit one of these lines to an appropriate length. Choose Edit > Replace from the menu, then copy and paste one of the too-long dotted lines into the Find what: box , then copy and paste the proper length line into the Replace with: box. Then choose Replace All.Go to the Location Glossary section and set up a header and footer if you like.




+1 651 447 5574 · fax: +1 952 853 1280

Go to the Cover Page - this is an extremely simple page, improve it! Add your zoo's address or logo. You may add a picture of your animal, fancy fonts, etc

Revised 10 May 2023* Species360 Organizational name change added on 07/18/2016

