Author: Harry Evans

The Sheep Register for Windows
Version 15
Copyright 2020

Phone: 413-499-0426
email: support@evsoft.us
web site: https:// evsoft.us

Evans Software Services (ESS) License Agreement
IMPORTANT NOTICE: Your use of the Register for Windows (the "Software") is governed by these Terms & Conditions. ESS reserves the right, at its discretion, to change, modify, add or remove portions of these Terms & Conditions at any time.
Please read the following Terms & Conditions prior to installing the Software. By installing, or attempting to install, the software on any computer system you indicate your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions.
The Software is protected by copyright, pursuant to U.S. copyright laws, international conventions, and other copyright laws. Except as specifically permitted, you may not modify, publish, transmit, participate in the transfer or sale of, reproduce, create derivative works from, distribute, perform, display, or in any way exploit the Software, in whole or in part.
You are granted a nonexclusive, non-transferable, limited license to use the Software for your own personal, family, or commercial farm located at one address. You may install this software on more than one computer, as long as the Software is used solely for the ranch to which it is licensed. You may create copies of the Software for backup purposes only.
By purchasing the Software, you do not acquire any proprietary interest in the Software. You agree not to remove or obscure the copyright notice and other legends contained in the Software and not to reverse engineer or attempt to reverse engineer the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED ON AN "AS IS", "AS AVAILABLE" BASIS. ESS DISCLAIMS ALL EXPRESS AND IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. ESS DOES NOT WARRANT THE ACCURACY OR RELIABILITY OF ANY OF THE SOFTWARE. YOU ACKNOWLEDGE THAT ANY RELIANCE UPON SUCH SOFTWARE SHALL BE AT YOUR SOLE RISK. ESS RESERVES THE RIGHT, IN ITS SOLE DISCRETION, TO CORRECT ANY ERRORS OR OMISSIONS IN THE SOFTWARE.
IF, NOTWITHSTANDING THE ABOVE, ESS IS FOUND LIABLE IN CONNECTION WITH A CLAIM ARISING OUT OF OR RELATED TO THE SOFTWARE, THEIR AGGREGATE LIABILITY IN SUCH AN EVENT SHALL NOT EXCEED THE INITIAL COST OF THE SOFTWARE. THIS SHALL BE YOUR SOLE AND EXCLUSIVE REMEDY AND SHALL BE IN LIEU OF ALL OTHER REMEDIES TO WHICH YOU MAY OTHERWISE BE ENTITLED FROM ESS.
ESS SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OF ANY KIND WHATSOEVER (INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION, ATTORNEY’S FEES) ARISING OUT OF OR RELATED TO THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ESS HAS BEEN NOTIFIED OF THE POTENTIAL OF SUCH DAMAGES.

Table of Contents
Installation Instructions 2
Important Background Information 3
How to Select Items from a List 3
How to Enter Dates 3
How to Enter Weights 4
How to Enter Numbers 5
The 3 Major Screens 6
The Summary Screen 6
The Pedigree Screen 9
The Litter Data Screen 11
How To Start Entering Data 12
Entering Pedigrees 12
Entering Litter Data 13
Entering Winnings 14
The ONLY times to use Add Sheep 15
How to Print the Important Stuff 16
Printing Pedigrees 16
Printing Inventories 19
Printing Business Cards 20
Printing Cage Cards 22
Printing Receipts/Bills of Sale 23
Chore Scheduling Features:
Introduction to TaskMaster 24
The TaskMaster Calendar 24
The Chore List 26
Description and Operation 26
Specifying the Chore Schedule 26
How to Use the TaskMaster Screen 27
Printing Chore Sheets 27
Adding Non-Breeding Chores 27
Medical Reminders 28
The Master Breeding List 29
My Journal 30
Birth Certificates 31
Storing Your Data in the Cloud 31
How to Save $50 to $900 34
Technical Support 35

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Rev. A - .- : 19 Feb 2019

Program Installation
Download and run the file Setup15S.exe, located at http://evsoft.us/version15.shtml#sheep
The installation program should now progress smoothly to completion. To start the program, look for the Sheep Register V15 icon, and double-click on it.
If you are trying the demo version of the software, you’re ready to start. If you have purchased the software, you should now register it in accordance with the instructions you received in the email regarding your purchase.
Now that you’ve installed the software, let’s move on to the next section, where we cover some of the important basics about using the program.

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Getting Started—Important Background Stuff
We think that you’ll find the program very intuitive and easy to use, but, to help ensure success, we recommend that you take a few moments to read these important paragraphs that describe important features that are used throughout the program.
Selecting item(s) from a list
You select items (animals, winnings, litters, etc.) just like any other modern Windows program. To select a single item, just click on the item. It will become highlighted on the screen. To select a group of items that are adjacent on the list, click on the first item, then hold down the Shift key, and click on the last item. They all will become selected. To select more than one item, but select them one at a time, click on the first item, then depress the Control key (Ctrl) and click on each individual animal.
Entering Dates
To enter dates we supply a calendar control. You can just type in the date if you want: click to the right of the checkbox, and start typing; but the calendar makes it easier. Here’s a picture of one as it first appears on the page:
If a date has already been entered in the date box, the checkbox on the left will be checked. To remove a previously entered date, uncheck the box on the left—it then will be grayed out as shown in the example above.
To select the currently displayed date, just make sure that the checkbox is checked. To change the date, click on the dropdown button, which will open the calendar. When the calendar is first opened, it looks like the image at the top of the next page (depending upon your version of Windows, the appearance may be slightly different). You can pick any day in the currently selected month by clicking on the date. To move forward or back one month at a time, click on the left or right arrows.
To directly select any month from this year click on the month name. A list of months will appear, that allows you to select any month from the currently selected year. In some versions of Windows there will be left and right arrows on the month selection list. To change years one at a time, click the left or right arrows. In other versions of Windows, click on the year shown on the calendar itself, and ’scroll up’ and ‘scroll down’ buttons will appear that let you move forward and back one year at a time.
You also can enter partial dates for when you don’t know the complete actual
date. Select an approximate date from the date calendar. Then right-click on
the calendar’s drop-down button, and it you can select to display a partial date.
Let’s say you selected July 15, 2018. Right-click on the calendar, and you will
be given these choices:
2018
July 2018
Summer 2018
July 15, 2018
Whenever using approximate dates for the date of birth, the program will place
a tilde(~) in front of calculated data like show class or age, to show that those
calculations are approximate.
Entering Weights
If you live in the US, the program will come set up for the English system based on pounds and ounces. If you live in any other country, it will be set up in metric units (either grams or kilograms, kilograms is the default). In the US, it defaults to pounds and ounces, but you can change it to ounces only, or decimal pounds. Please note, and this is important, DO NOT try to enter pounds and ounces using a decimal point between the two.
For metric, ounce and decimal pound users, the data entry is straightforward—just type in the value.. But for English, Pounds and Ounces’, users, I will explain a bit more on the next page. If you want to store weights in units other than what the program uses as the default, click on Options, Weight Units—and then select the way you want to enter and view weights in the program. For those of you using pounds and ounces, here’s what the box looks like:
Start by typing the pounds portion of the weight. To separate between pounds and ounces, you can type the pound sign (#), which is sometimes called the ‘hash’ symbol. You have to hold down the Shift key and depress 3. That can get to be a pain when you are entering a bunch of weights, so we added a special key to make it easier — use a forward slash (/) —that’s the one on the same key with the question mark. That way you don’t need to use the Shift key. Think of it as the left side of the pound symbol. After typing the / then just type the number of ounces you wish to enter.
You will notice that there are little up/down arrows on the right side of the box, you can use them to make small adjustments in the weight. I wouldn’t recommend using them to get from 5 pounds to 95 pounds, you’d be clicking all day, but if you want to change the weight by an ounce or two, that’s an easy way to do it. To change the pounds portion quickly, just double-click it and then enter the new number.
Entering Numbers
Entering numbers is straightforward, just type them into the box. We also provide those little up/down arrows on the right side of the box, and you can use them to increment the numbers up or down.

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Getting Started—The 3 Major Screens
The Summary Screen
This is the screen that greets you first after the program has started, and is the screen that controls how the program works and what the program shows you. You will spend a lot of time looking at this screen! Here’s what the top left corner looks like:
Let’s define some terms:
Menu Bar: The line near the top that begins File Edit Display
Tool Bar: That’s the line of icons that begins with the buttons captioned View Income Add Sheep Add Pedigree
Control Bar: The line that begins Active Rex Sheep
Summary List: The table that fills the rest of the screen
The Menu Bar is what you use to change settings in the program that are infrequently used. If you have the Deluxe or Platinum Editions, it also provides access to the chore scheduling/viewing portions of the program called TaskMaster and Master Breeding List.
Use the Tool Bar to access the most commonly used features in the program. We will talk about some of these icons in this manual. But the most important icon of all on this screen, and you will see it on many of the other screens, is this one that features a life preserver and looks like this:
because clicking on this icon will bring up detailed information on the presently selected screen, and allows you to search the entire built-in help manual for answers to your questions. These built-in help screens provide FAR more information than is contained in this introductory booklet. Please use them as your first source of information about the program. Because the program contains roughly 100 different screens, and because we can’t think of every question that might be asked, if you find that a help screen that is either missing completely, or is not very helpful, do not hesitate to contact us, so that we can answer your question and also improve the built-in help.
On older and/or smaller screens, not all the icons will fit on the screen at one time, so you may have to click over on the right side, shown below where the crude red arrow is pointing, to see the rest of the icons.
(I drew the red arrow, to help you find the drop-down button in the picture, the red arrow will NOT appear on your computer screen)
OK, on to the Control Bar. This feature regulates what you see in the Summary List. Clicking on any underlined item brings up a list of choices. So, if you refer back to the picture on the previous page, clicking on Active will allow you to pick from choices like Archive, Sold Animals, Registerable Animals, and so on. Clicking on Rex brings up a list of all of your breeds and gives you the ability to add a new breed to your herd.
The Summary List, by default shows all the animals of the selected breed that are currently in your herd. You can choose to show as many or as few columns of information as you would like. We give you a list of 20 different types of data to choose from, just click the Customize Table icon. You will see a list of all the possible choices. Click the left icon on the list to include it on the screen, click the right icon to include it on your inventory printouts. And, again, you can change the animals shown in the list by clicking on the Control Bar.
Note that you can put the Summary List columns in any order that you would like, just drag the name of the column to the desired position in the table.
The Pedigree Screen
Above is a tiny picture of what the Pedigree Screen looks like. It is reached by clicking on an animal, then clicking the View Ped icon on the Summary Screen. As shown above, it is set up to show a 4 generation pedigree with the boars in blue, the ewes in red. But you can have the program color the boxes by the color of the animal, if you prefer. So chocolates are chocolate-colored, lilacs are lilac-colored, and so on.
When you first receive the software, it will show a 3 generation pedigree (8 animals down the right side). But on any computer you can change it to show 4 generations, as above, and on higher resolution monitors, it will can be set to show 5 generations. But, regardless of the number of generations shown, you can see further back into an animal’s ancestry. Just right-click on any one of the critters, a menu will pop up, and one of the choices is Show This Animal’s Pedigree. If you click on it, the program will bring up the pedigree for that animal. And you can repeat this process, looking further and further back into an animal’s parentage, until you finally run out of historical information in your program.
While on the Pedigree Screen, click on the Adj. Display icon to select between:
Standard view: rams in blue, ewes in red.
Colored by variety: — the boxes are colored by the color of the animal.
Line Breeding Coefficient: the coefficient is shown in each box, unique animals are grayed out
Inbreeding Coefficient: the coefficient is shown for the root animal, ancestors that appear in both the maternal and paternal trees are shown in color, all others are grayed out.
Right-click on any animal to:
Change the color of the box on the screen
Highlight its occurrence(s) on the pedigree
View that animal’s pedigree.
This is the same screen that you use to enter full pedigrees, both when you first get the program, and later on, when you are entering the pedigree of a newly-purchased sheep. We will cover that process in detail in the topic entitled Entering a Pedigree
.
The Litter Data Screen
The Litter Data Screen has two main sections. The upper section is a table that contains one line for each time that you have bred the ewe. The lower section is a bar graph in which you can select to display any of the parameters listed in the table, for instance, number born, number weaned, number of rams, number of ewes and so on.
At the top of the screen is a menu bar which provides you with the ability to add rows to the table, edit the table, print the table and so on.
Another important button is the Expand Litter button. When clicked, it takes the currently selected litter and automatically enters the animals from that litter into your animal database and creates pedigrees for the animals in the litter.
As with all the major tables in the program, you can select which columns of data you wish to display, and the order in which to display that data.
Entering Data
Introduction
When you first get the program, you will be anxious to get some data entered. Please take the time to do this in the order we recommend, in the long run it will make your life MUCH easier. Here’s how to begin: click on Select My First Breed on the Control Bar, a screen will appear that shows all of the breeds currently in the program. Pick the one that you’d like to work with first. Then click the Accept button. You can return to this screen at any time to add more breeds.
Entering Pedigrees
Enter the pedigrees of your breeding stock, starting with the pedigrees of the oldest generation in your herd. At this time, DO NOT PUT IN ANY ANIMALS USING Add Sheep, always begin by entering the complete pedigree of an animal using the Add Pedigree function, reached by clicking Add Ped on the Summary Screen.
Clicking the Add Ped button brings up the Pedigree Screen that we talked about previously. It will display a blank pedigree, with the leftmost animal (we call that the ‘root animal’,) displayed in yellow, and on the right side of the screen is a box where you type in what you know about that animal.
Type in everything you know about the yellow animal, copying it from the paper pedigree that you have. Use the Tab key to move from field to field.
When you have typed in all that you know about the first animal, click Next Sheep. The program will take everything that you’ve typed, place it in the yellow box, change that box’s color to red or blue depending upon the sex of the animal, and highlight the next box in yellow.
Repeat steps 3 and 4 until you have typed in all the animals on this pedigree. At this point you can either click All Done, which will take you back to the Summary Screen, or you can click Next Pedigree, which will clear the screen so that you can start entering another pedigree, by repeating steps 3 & 4.
Entering Litter Data
The Litter Data Screen is where we display breeding records for each ewe. This screen shows each time the ewe was bred, to whom she was bred, when/if she kindled, how many were born, how many died, how many were rams, how many were ewes, and so on. Litter data is always entered for the ewe, but can be viewed by either the ewe or the ram. To access this area of the program, click on an animal, so that it is highlighted. Then click View litters. That brings up the Litter Data Screen. When you first view it, it will be empty. To enter a breeding, click the Add Entry button. This brings up the Litter Data Entry screen. For entering historical data, fill in all the fields that you wish and click either Done or Add Another, which lets you add another litter for the same ewe. For a new breeding, just enter the sire and the date bred, and click Done. Then later, you can return and edit this litter to add data like date born, number born, sex of the offspring, and so on. All of the data entry boxes are standard date and number boxes, as described in the first part of this manual. But the Sire Info box is special, so let’s look at it, and talk about it for a bit. It looks like this:
Most of the time, the sire will be in your database. In this case, leave Known Sire selected. If you know your animals by name, rather than ear number, then select By Name from the drop-down. Then start typing in the data box. The program will show you names or ear numbers of rams currently in your herd that are similar to what you are typing. Select the one that matches.
Sometimes, the animal is in your herd, but you haven’t entered him into the database yet. In that case, you can click the Add…. button, and enter him right now. Then select him from the list, as above.
If the sire IS NOT in your database, and you don’t have his information handy, select the Unknown Sire button—this will allow you to enter some reminders as to who the sire is, so that later, when you get his pedigree, you can enter that pedigree into the program, then come. Back, select Known Sire and pick him from the list.
There are two other check boxes that are provided for rare, special cases. If you are entering historical data, it is possible that the sire is now dead, and therefore in your archives. In that case check the Show Archived box, and you will see all rams in this breed. The Show All Breeds checkbox is useful when entering a cross-breed breeding, as it will cause the program to show you all the rams from all breeds.
Entering Winnings
Winnings are entered on the Enter Winnings Screen. There are a bunch of different ways to get to that screen.
While entering a pedigree, click on the Add Winnings button
While on the Summary Screen, select a sheep, click on the Winnings icon and select View this animal’s wins. That brings up the Winnings Data Screen, which shows a list of the wins that you’ve already entered for the currently selected animal. Now click the Add Entry button
If you have previously prepared a show entry for a show, and want to enter winnings for some or all of the animals in that show, click on the Winnings icon on the Summary Screen and select Enter wins from a recent show. This brings up a screen from which you select the show, then click on the sheep entered in that show for whom you want to enter winnings data.
Once on the screen, enter the show date. You have to type this one in yourself, there’s no calendar. In many cases, if you are entering data from a pedigree, you will know the month and year for the show, but not the day. Just enter a question mark (?) for the day, like this for October 2012: 10/?/2012. Enter the name, location and judge then pick the show type. The program will then provide checkboxes to mark off the more common winnings. If none of the checkboxes apply, you can enter a winning in the Other Winnings box. Also, on the right side, is a Rank box. Use this to help control the order in which the wins appear when printed on a pedigree. Typically the program lists the winnings in chronological order, starting with the most recent. But suppose you have an outstanding winning that occurred several years ago. Assigning it a rank of Very High will cause that winning to always be near the top of the list. Similarly, if you had a bad day, you can select Hide, and that show will not appear on winnings printouts.
Using Add Sheep
OK, so I sort of said you shouldn’t ever use Add Sheep. Well, turns out I lied. There are two times when it is OK to use Add Sheep:
If you have a sheep and have no idea who its parents are, but you want to keep track of it in the system. Then use Add Sheep to put in that animal.
To put in a new litter of animals, whose parents’ pedigrees are already in the program. You would only do this only if you do not keep litter data records in the system, because using the Expand Litter function that is available on the Litter Data Screen is faster and easier than this method. See the data on Entering Litter Data on page 13 for that method. But, if you don’t keep litter data, then to add a new litter:
Select both the sire and dam on the Summary List.
Click Add Sheep. The program will bring up the Detail Screen and enable it for data entry. The sire and dam information will already be filled in.
Enter the name. color, ear number, etc. for the first sheep.
click Add Another. The program will ask if it is from the same litter. If you click Yes, it will fill in the sire, dam and date of birth, so you don’t have to type it again.
Repeat until done.
Printing the Important Stuff
Printing Pedigrees
This is a pretty lengthy subject, so I’m going to split it up into a couple of smaller topics. Here’s one other point that I should mention. Most of the other items you choose to print will, by default, be made to, in some way, match the format that you choose for your pedigrees. So be sure to set up how you want your pedigrees to look before you do something like design your business cards.
Picking the Pedigrees to Print
There are 2 ways to select the pedigrees to print.
Click on an animal, click View Ped. This brings up the Pedigree Display Screen. Check to make sure that you only see red and blue boxes. If you see yellow boxes, then you know it is an incomplete pedigree, and maybe you don’t really want to print it. If the displayed pedigree meets with your approval, then click the Adjust & Print Ped button on the toolbar. This brings up the Pedigree Printout Setup Screen.
Select one or more animals from the Summary List. Click the Print icon. Select Pedigrees. This will also bring up the Pedigree Printout Setup Screen.
In either case, but especially if you used option 2 and picked more than one animal, it can take quite a few seconds for the program to bring up the Pedigree Printout Setup Screen, because it is doing a LOT of work drawing up a picture of what your printed pedigree(s) will look like, so please be patient.
Selecting Your Pedigree Style
The program provides you with 6 basic styles of pedigree:
Pre-Sale. The upper left corner of the pedigree has blank lines for you to manually fill in the buyer information at the time of sale.
Post-Sale. The program prints the buyer information on the pedigree. If you have not already specified the buyer, it asks for the sale information and attaches it to the animal in addition to printing it on the pedigree.
Non-Sale. Nothing is printing in the upper left corner of the pedigree.
Multi-Mini. Prints the pedigrees of up to four animals that you have selected onto one sheet of paper. Regardless of how many animals you have chosen, the program will print each pedigree on 1/4 of the page.
Breeding Certificate. Looks just like a regular pedigree, but in the upper left corner says ‘This ram bred to:’ and provides a space to write in the sire info.
Photo Pedigree. A family portrait pedigree. Prints each animal’s picture, captioned with it’s name or ear number.
Selecting Your Pedigree Format
Under the Adjust Format icon are many different choices for adjusting the look of your pedigree. Most are self-explanatory, a few might not be obvious. The best thing to do is just pick one, click the Preview Pedigree icon, and see if you like the look.
Hint: one easy way to make your pedigrees different from everyone else’s pedigrees is to pick a different Header Font. Just click the Select Header Font button and find one you like. Then maybe make it a different color.
The Select Colors icon gives you control of the coloration on the printed pedigree, and you can see those color changes when you click the Preview Pedigree icon. Note that the colors of the boxes on the actual Pedigree Display Screen are NOT affected by how you color your printed pedigrees. Also, when you export a pedigree, it does NOT follow the coloration and style of your printed pedigrees. Windows provides a lot more ability to control printed pedigrees than on the exported pedigrees.
To include a picture on your pedigree, click the Add/Edit Picture icon. You can either have a small picture, located in a 2 inch by 2 inch square between the sire and dam, or a full page image. You can also specify whether you want to use the picture of the animal that is leftmost on the pedigree, so it’s different on each pedigree, or you can specify a single image to appear on every pedigree. If using a single image for every pedigree, the program stores that image separately for each breed. That way you can use a club logo or representative picture of the breed, and it will automatically be correct for each pedigree you print, regardless of which breed is selected.
A Word About Paper Size and Pedigree Size
The program will attempt to fit the pedigree style that you have selected onto whatever size paper you have selected. It will print one pedigree per page, with the exception of the Multi-Mini, in which it will fit 4 on the page. Obviously if you decide to print a Multi-Mini, 4 generation pedigree on a 3x5 card, the print will be too small to print legibly and read, so plan accordingly.
Printing Inventories
This is an easy one. You have two choices, you can select individual animals, or you can print all the animals in the currently shown area on the Summary List. Even if your Summary List is long, and you have to scroll on the screen to see all the animals, your printed inventory will automatically include them all. So, as usual, start on the Summary Screen. If printing just selected animals, pick them first. Otherwise, just click the Print icon and pick the kind of inventory you want to print. A preview screen will then appear, and you can decide from looking at the preview what columns you want to print, what paper orientation and size you want.
When you click Select Columns you will see the menu shown to the left. There are two columns of check marks. The left column shows what you currently have selected on the Summary Screen. The right list is what you have selected to print. Be sure to check/uncheck the items in the RIGHT column that you want to have appear on your inventory printout.
Don’t forget to watch the right side of the page on the preview, to be sure that everything fits. If you pick too many columns, it will spill off the end and not print at all — stuff that spills off the right side of the page is lost.
If you are printing in Portrait Mode, and want to print more columns, switch to Landscape Mode.
Designing and Printing Business Cards
Helpful Hint: Before you design your business cards do two things:
1, Design your pedigrees.
2. Enter your web and email address information into the program under Options, Personal Settings, Update Web & Email Info.
This is because when you design your business cards, it will ‘carry in’ the style you laid out for your pedigrees –so doing them first makes your life a bit easier — you won’t have to work hard to make your business cards match your pedigrees, they will match by default.
Start on the Summary Screen. Click the Print icon and select Business Cards. The Business Card Setup Screen will (slowly) appear. Click the Adjust Format icon and proceed through each of the menu choices, in order, as follows:
# of Cards per page. Your only choices are 8 or 10. The program will print on either of these 2 standard business card sizes, no other. All cards are 2” x 3-1/2”, most are 10 to the sheet. Some are 8 per sheet, for use in older/cheaper printers that can’t print close to the top/bottom edge of the paper.
Style. You have 4 choices here.
Text only (= no picture on card)
Left-Justified Image
Right-Justified Image
Centered Image. This is the only one that might need a word of caution. If you opt to print a centered image, the text will print over it. So you’d better pick an image that is pale, and a text color that is dark, because otherwise the printed text won’t show. Don’t forget that your printer can’t print white — we get a lot of tech support calls where folks are expecting their printers to print white, which really means they print nothing at all!
Information Shown. Here you step line-by-line through your card, deciding what information you want to have shown on your card. For each line you will pick the information you want shown on that line, and the font and color for that line. Please note that the program stores the actual information. So, if for instance, you put your farm name on line 1, and then 2 years from now you change your farm name, you will have to come back here and reprogram that line. Remember that if the line is too long, you may be able to get it to fit by making the font size smaller for that line.
Margins. This is last, and, frankly, can be a bit of a pain. We try to get it right to begin with, but, especially with Windows 8, sometimes we are unable to exactly predict where your printer is going to print. So, here’s what to do:
Make a test printout on plain white (inexpensive) paper.
Place the printout behind a fresh sheet of business cards and hold it up to the light. If the alignment is wrong, adjust the margins accordingly. Making the top margin bigger pushes the printout down. Making the left margin bigger pushes the printout to the right.
Make another printout on cheapo paper and repeat step 2.
Keep repeating 2 and 3 until the printout is good.
Now you’re ready to print for real. Put in the good paper and click the Print icon. All of your settings will be saved, so the next time you need to print business cards, all you will have to do is come to this screen and click the Print icon.
Printing Cage Cards
As always, start on the Summary Screen. Select the animals for which you want to print cage cards. Click the Print icon. This brings up the Cage Label Setup Screen. If this is your first time here, click the Adjust Format icon and follow these steps:
Select your printer (it’s probably already selected)
Select the size of the paper you are going to be using. Note: unless you are printing 1 card per page, the size of the paper is different from the size of the card/label.
Select the number of cards/labels you want to print per page
Select each line that you want to print.
As you proceed, sometimes the program will automatically redraw a preview image of the labels, but most of the time, when you want to see how your design is progressing, click the Preview Printout icon.
While the program will attempt to adjust your text size to fit your labels, keep in mind that it won’t generally choose a font size smaller than 8 or 9. So there’s no way you can print 8 lines of text on a 1 inch tall label. So either pick the most important lines to print on your small labels, or pick larger labels/cards to include everything you want to print.
Most folks use the labels that come 30 to the page (Avery 5130/5160 are typical numbers), and print 4 or 5 lines per label. Some folks print one animal or two animals on 3x5 or 4x6 cards and tape them to magnets…. Whatever works for you.
Printing Receipts/Bills of Sale
If you are printing receipts for sheep you have sold, it’s often best to print their pedigrees first using the Post-Sale format. If you are selling items other than sheep that are listed uniquely in your database, then just start on the Summary Screen. Click the Print icon and select Receipts. This brings up the Sales Receipt Preparation Screen. Proceed as follows:
Click the blue button and enter the buyer information. If you have recently sold animals to this buyer, the program will ask if you want to add those animals to this receipt.
Specify the date of sale.
Fill in the lines on the table with the items you are selling. Empty lines will automatically appear each time you fill up a line. Be sure to check the Taxable box if tax must be charged.
Enter a tax percentage, if required.
Enter whatever you’d like in the method of payment field
Enter the amount paid.
Click the yellow button to print.
Chore Scheduling
Introduction to TaskMaster
TaskMaster (TM for short) is a chore scheduling program that is included within the Sheep Register for Windows. It uses your existing litter data to remind you of the various phases and tasks associated with breeding your animals. Once you have entered a date bred into the litter data for the ewe, it then will automatically remind you when to palpate, put in the nest box, expect the litter, remove the nestbox, rebreed, and remove the litter. You can also add other breeding and non-breeding related chores of your own, and any chores that have been entered into the medical records section can also be made to appear on your TM list.
To work with TaskMaster, just click on the menu choice TaskMaster... at the top of your Summary Screen. This will bring up the TaskMaster Chore List Screen for ALL breeds, regardless of the breed currently displayed on the Summary Screen (you can change to showing chores for only the currently selected breed if you wish, by clicking on the Filter Chores icon). You will do most of your TM work on this screen. On the left side of the screen is a calendar. On the right is the task list. This list displays the tasks that are scheduled to be completed on the date selected on the calendar. Each time that you start TaskMaster, this screen will appear with today’s date selected. Across the top of the window is a toolbar with various controls for adjusting how the chore list is displayed, and other functions. Each of these buttons, the functions they perform and the screens that they display will be described in more detail below, after we cover some other important information.
The Calendar
The calendar is used to choose a date. The box with the date circled in red represents today. Each time that you start the program, the date cursor will be positioned on the present date. You may select a different date by moving the cursor.
In addition to providing a convenient way to select the date for which you want to see chores, the calendar also provides a lot of useful information, including:
1) the phases of the moon (new, first quarter, full, last quarter:
2) Religious holidays of various faiths:
3) Secular holidays: (plus special icons for many holidays)
3) Vacations and family events:
4) Shows:
5) Chores and reminders:
6)Plus many more.
In every case, if you are unsure what a symbol means, hover your mouse pointer over the symbol and a small box will pop up and identify the symbol’s meaning.
To move the cursor to a different day that is within the present month, just click on the desired date. To change months, click on the left- or right-facing single triangle symbols that are adjacent to the month name. Clicking on the left triangle will take you back one month per click. Clicking on the right triangle will take you forward one month per click. Changing years is accomplished in an identical manner using the double triangle symbols.
Use the Configure Calendar icon in the toolbar to adjust what is displayed in the calendar boxes
The Chore List
The list on the right side of the screen displays all of the chores for the selected date(s). If there are more chores than can be seen at one time, a scroll bar will appear at the right side of the list. Dragging the scroll bar will display the remaining list entries. Double-clicking on a chore on the list will mark it as completed, and allow you to enter specific details about that particular chore. Use the Filter Chores icon to control the information displayed on the list. You can choose to see
just the currently selected breed or all breeds,
Today’s chores only or all uncompleted chores (’outstanding chores’)
Today’s completed chores.
Description and Operation
Specifying the Chore Schedule. You can separately specify the breeding cycle times and chore dates for each breed. If you do not customize the chore data, the program defaults to the following:
Day 00 Breed
Day 09 Palpate
Day 11 Rebreed on palpate failure
Day 26 Put in nestbox
Day 28 Litter due
Day 58 Remove nestbox
Day 63 Rebreed
Day 75 Remove litter
To change these dates, make sure you are in the breed that you want to change, (remember, the program stores this information separately for each breed, so you must start on the screen for the breed that you want to change) and then go to the TaskMaster screen. At the top of the TM screen, click on the toolbar choice Edit Breed Profile, This will bring up the Chore Planning Screen. From here you can select any of the breeding-related tasks, and edit it. Just fill in the number of days after the breed date that you want to be reminded of an event, and the program will do the rest. If you do not palpate your animals, or do not want the program to remind you to rebreed your animals, then edit that chore and uncheck the Enabled box. To leave this screen and save your changes, click Done. To leave without saving any changes you have made, click the Cancel button.
By clicking the Add New… button you can also add your own custom chores to the breeding cycle for every ewe, and these chores can be different for each breed.
Note that for chores that occur after the litter is born, you can specify when they occur either as the number days after breeding, or the number of days after kindling. If you chose to specify the chore as a certain number of days after kindling, the program will provide an estimated date for that chore, until kindling actually occurs. Estimated chore dates are indicated by a tilde (~), the mathematical symbol for “approximately”. After an actual kindling date has been entered, the program will recalculate the chore date, and show it without the tilde.
By clicking the Adjust Table icon on the TaskMaster Chore List Screen, you can select how the animals themselves are listed on the Chore List. They can be shown by any combination of breed, name, ear number and/or cage number.
How to Use the TaskMaster Screen. To mark a task as done, just double-click on it. When a task has been marked as done, it disappears from your list, unless you have checked Completed Chores under the Filter Chores icon, in which case the chores that were completed on the selected day will show, with a small green checkmark on the task icon. Tasks not yet done have no check mark beside them. Any changes made on this screen will appear in your litter data, and any changes made in your litter data will appear here. Once you leave this screen, any tasks marked as done will NOT appear on this screen again, but a permanent record is kept with the litter information, and can always be viewed and edited there. So if you discover you’ve made a mistake AFTER leaving this screen, you will have to go to the litter data screen for the ewe with the error, and make the correction there.
Printing your Chore Sheets. Just click on the Print Chores icon on the TaskMaster Chore List Screen. The Task Printout Screen will appear. Use the left calendar to specify the first date that you want to print and use the right calendar to specify the last date that you want to print.
Note: To make the calendar box disappear after making a selection, just move your mouse pointer off of the box.
If you check the “Click to show all outstanding chores" box, all of the uncompleted chores from days prior to the date selected on the right calendar will be printed on the first page of your chore list. If this box is not selected, these old chores will not be printed. You can select to print all chores on a single page, or each day’s chores on a separate page. Once you have made your selections, click on the Print icon to start printing. You should always print a week or less at a time, because the program adds new chores to the list based on the chores that you have completed, so if you print too far in advance, not all chores will be listed.
Use the Settings button to select a printer, adjust paper orientation, paper size, line spacing, and font size.
Adding Non-breeding Related Chores
TaskMaster allows you to set up your own chores, and be reminded to do them as oftenas you like, from once ever, to daily. On the TaskMaster Chore List Screen, clickon the Edit Non-Breed Chores button. This will bring up the Non-Breeding Chore SetupScreen.
To add a new chore, proceed as follows:
Click Add New.... his brings up the Non-Breeding Chore Master Add/Edit Screen. Describe the task on this screen.
Checking Keep Permanently means that the program will add the completion of this task to the animal's permanent, otherwise, it will disappear from the animal's records after it is completed.
Checking Medical Chore means that this chore will be treated as a special, medical-relateditem. Not only will reminders appear on TaskMaster, they will also appear on theSummary Screen.
Checking Print in Medical History means that the program will print this item in a printed copy of the animal's medical history. If not checked, it will appear on the screen, but not in a printout.
Non–Sheep Chores. Choose this for chores that are totally unrelated to sheep,such as “Pay Electric Bill”
Sheep-Related Chores. You can add chores for particular sheep that are not relatedto a breeding cycle by selecting Sheep-Related in the Applies To box. You then can choose to have that chore apply to all animals, only the ewes, only the rams, or just selected individual, specific sheep.
If you select Specific Animals, the program then presents a list of all of your active animals, and you can pick them one at a time to be added to this chore.
Click Done, when you are finished with defining this task.
You now can click Add New.... again if you wish, until you have added as many basic chores as you would like. Click Done to exit and return to the TaskMaster Screen.
The Master Breeding List
In addition to the TaskMaster listing of chores that is provided by date, the program also provides a Master Breeding List, which can be viewed for the currently selected breed or all breeds. By default, this listing shows all ewes that are currently bred, and the status of their current litter. Under user control, you can change it to display all litters in the past 3 months, 6 months, or all litters in the past year. This data is viewed from the Summary Screen, by selecting the menu choice titled Master Breeding List..., at the top of the screen, or by clicking on the Master Breeding List button on the TaskMaster Chore List Screen.
You can move the columns to be in whatever order you like by dragging the column header to the desired position. You also can change information displayed by using the Customize Table icon. Printing is handled in the same fashion as it is for the TaskMaster chore sheets.
My Journal
The program offers a searchable diary or journal. You can use it to keep track of anything that you would like. It can be set up to display one day per page or one week page. The 7 day display can begin on any day of the week. By default, the week begins on Sunday. These settings are under the Setup menu on the My Journal page. For each entry you can assign markings to each entry, from 0 to 5 stars, and /or one or more colors (red, orange, green, blue or violet). These markings have no specific meaning to the program, they are for your own use and you can define them to mean whatever you like, or you can ignore them completely. Some folks use the stars to signify importance, the more stars, the more important the entry. As for the colors, some folks set up a system, for example, red entries might be medical notes, blue for breeding notes, and so on. Here is a small sample of the upper left corner of a 7 day page:
Red and green colors have been selected and it has been assigned a 3 star rating. The text that you enter would appear in the yellow box, which extends across the page further to the right than you can see here.
Using the Search feature at the top of the journal page, you can search for any combination of stars, colors and text, and the program will show you all the entries that match those search criteria.
Birth Certificates
This feature is available on the Summary Screen, under the Print icon, primarily for selling pet animals. Select the animal(s) you wish to print, then click Print, Birth Certificates. The certificate gives the animal’s name, ear number, date of birth, the name and ear number of the parents and the name of the farm. It does not provide contact information. If you print your pedigrees in black and white, the birth certificate also prints in black and white. If you print your pedigrees in color, the birth certificate prints in color, with the stork carrying a pink bundle for a ewe and a blue bundle for a ram.
Storing your Data in the Cloud
Introduction
Your program has the ability to automatically store your data in the Cloud, in a Microsoft OneDrive account. When it does this, it stores a copy of your data on your machine, but then also copies that file to your OneDrive cloud account. This is NOT an instantaneous process, but it DOES eliminate the need to make backups and also allows you to access the data from several computers if you wish, but you should not try to edit the data on two machines at the same time. Only add or edit data from one machine at a time, then let Microsoft copy that data to the cloud and back to the other machine before making changes on the other machine. If you do not have a huge number of files in your OneDrive account, this will usually happen quite quickly. So, for example, you can enter new data on your home or office computer, then go to the barn, and your updated data should have already arrived by the time you get there. Also note that you should NOT enter data changes and then immediately shut off the computer if you are planning on looking at that data on another machine, always wait until OneDrive indicates that it is up-to-date before powering off (if you only have data on one machine, this is not an issue, you can shut off right away).
Set up OneDrive First
You must already have set up your OneDrive account before you begin this process. If you are planning on sharing the data on multiple computers, they must all point to the same OneDrive account.. If you need assistance doing this, please consult Microsoft’s OneDrive help.
Connecting the Register program to OneDrive
(In the description below, the key with the Windows logo in it, generally called the Start key, is located two keys to the left of the spacebar). Please note that this is NOT the start button that is an image usually located in the lower left corner of your screen!!
On the computer that has the latest data start up the Register program.
On the Summary Screen, click on File, Data Management, Store Data in OneDrive. The program should transfer your data to the OneDrive account and then terminate.
Go into the File Explorer (hold down the Start key, give the letter e a quick tap, then release the Start key)
Locate the folders that are shown under OneDrive
Find the Sheep Register Data folder. Make sure that it either says Available offline in the Availability column (in Windows 8), or has a green circle with a white checkmark in it that is superimposed on the icon (in Windows 10). If it does not (and it probably won’t), right-click on it and change the availability until you see what is described in the previous sentence.
Now start up the program again on the first computer. It should find your data.
If you are only using one computer, you’re done, otherwise, continue with step 7.
Go to the other computer(s) and go into the File Explorer (as described in step 3, above).
Look for what folders are shown under OneDrive
If you see the Sheep Register Data folder (which is unlikely) go to step 10
-- otherwise –
Right-click on the OneDrive icon and select Choose OneDrive folders to sync and check the Sheep Register Data folder. Then wait for the folder to link.
Start the Sheep Register program on the second computer.
On the Summary Screen, click on File, Data Management, Store Data in OneDrive. The program will say it has found a file in OneDrive, do you want to use it? Click Yes.
The program will now end. Restart it and you are good to go!
A Few Cautions
To repeat something I said in the introduction, when departing from a computer on which you have just made changes, do NOT shut it off right away as OneDrive may not yet have updated the copy of the data that is in the cloud. Leave the computer running for at least 5 minutes, or right-click on the OneDrive icon in the Systray make sure that it has finished syncing the RegisterV14.ACCDB file AFTER you made the most recent changes.
If leaving a computer running, it is best to leave that computer with either the Sheep Register turned off, or so it is displaying the Summary Screen.
When starting up the Sheep Register, it will ask to confirm that the data it sees is the latest. Be sure that the date and time look right, otherwise you may need to tell the program to wait until OneDrive updates on this machine. If the computer had been running for some time before you started the Sheep Register, the data should be current, but if you just turned it on, and have recently made changes on the other computer, it may take a bit to get the changes down from the cloud.
Do NOT put a lot of other files in OneDrive, otherwise you slow down its performance and it may take longer to update.
How to Save $50 to $900
OK, I’m being tricky here, but this is REALLY important. We have over 14,000 customers and EVERY DAY we get anywhere from 1 to 4 phone calls and/or emails where folks have had a lightening strike, a fire, a power surge, or their computer just plain up and died. AND THEY NEVER MADE A BACKUP OF THEIR DATA.
So, here they are, wondering who is due to kindle, who they sold animals to, and how they are going to recreate their data. In some cases, they’ve had our program for over 15 years, and never made a backup of their data. So their choices are either retype it all in, if they can find the original paperwork, or pay someone to recover their data. If when the computer died, it didn’t kill their hard drive, the usual cost to recover their data is anywhere from $50 to $150. But if the hard drive died, and they REALLY want that data (I’ve had a few that did), the hard drive has to be sent to a special disk recovery facility, and they typically charge $300 to $900 to recover the data.
Brand new computers die, old computers die, middle-aged computers die. DON’T THINK THIS WON’T GOING TO HAPPEN TO YOU. IT WILL!
So, save yourself a bundle of money. Go out, buy a $3 flash drive and make a ritual of backing up your data every time you say ‘Whew, I don’t want to have to enter all of that again’. If you need help learning how to make a backup, call us. We’re here to help, we’d much rather spend 10 minutes teaching you how to do a backup, than spend 4 fruitless hours trying to help you get your data off the charred remains of your dearly departed computer.
Technical Support
We pride ourselves on our technical support, and encourage you to use it. The best ways to reach us are:
By Phone: 413-499-0426 between 8 AM and 8 PM Eastern time.
(Please note, if you are not in the Eastern zone, it is later here than where you live. So don’t call us at 11 PM YOUR time thinking we’re just finishing dinner.—it’s at least midnight here, we’re in bed and get a tad grumpy when the phone rings that late at night!)
By Email: support@evsoft.us 8 AM to 10 PM Eastern
By Mail: PO Box 1534
Lanesboro MA 01237

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