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Filter

What are filters? They are a way to tell a database to only display records that have particular attributes. Filters can do the opposite too and hide records with particular attributes. Filters don't change or delete records, they just temporarily hide them.

Filtering genealogical information is crucial for research, as well as for removing the clutter of irrelevant data from reports.

Most reports of Gramps allow the use of filters, only displaying information about people that correspond to the filter.

On the other hand, filtered View data can be all the info you need, like a self constructed mini-report.

Contents

How to define custom filters

Custom filters are specific to the active Category View. If displaying the People Category View, you will create a Person Filter; Event Category View, an Event Filter; et cetera.

Select the Edit ➡ <Category> Filter Editor menu option and from the <Category> Filters dialog select Add a new filter to bring up the Define filter dialog.

From the Define filter dialog you can give the custom filter a name and add (built-in or addon) rules to the filter. The data will be filtered according to the rules.

In some filters you can use regular expressions. For learning how to use regular expressions, see the Regular Expression HOWTO.

Test a custom filter

 
Fig. .1 Filter Test - results list example from Person Filters

From the <Category> Filters dialog list select the previously created custom filter and select the Test the selected filter button to show the Filter Test dialog that will show the results if any.

Examples

See Example filters.

To the right of the list view, a sidebar will open, allowing to filter your data. At the bottom of this, you can select the newly created Custom Filter. Click on Find, and all Persons/Families/Events/Places/Media/Sources/Citations/Repositories/Notes matching the filter are displayed.

Other options

You have an option Export view on the Family Trees menu. This gives you the opportunity to export the view as a spreadsheet with following format options:

  • CSV
  • Open Document Spreadsheet

Another method would be that you select the Export option on the Family Trees menu. An Export Assistant view will be presented where you also can select the Comma Separated Values Spreadsheet (CSV). Next, click on the Forward button and in the next screen you can select in the Options view which filter you want to use and whether you want to include Individuals, Marriages and Children. Click once again on the Forward button and you can save the file.

Suggestions for filter rules

What you can do with a filter depends on the rules available to you in Gramps.

Any suggestions for a new useful filter rule, please create a feature request.

See also