Arranging and Tidying Your Genogram
Auto-arrange, drag people and the key, recenter the view on your index person, undo layout mistakes, and print at the right size.
When a genogram gets jumbled — usually right after you add a batch of new people like grandparents — you almost never need to fix it by hand. GenogramAI can re-lay-out the whole chart in one step, and everything you do to tidy it can be undone.
Ask the AI to auto-arrange
The fastest fix is to let the AI clean things up. Open the AI assistant (the purple sparkle button on the right edge) and type "auto arrange" or "tidy up". The auto-arrange is hierarchical: it keeps every generation on its own row, centers children under their parents, lines up names, and keeps your index person centered.
Most of the time you won't even have to ask. When the AI adds two or more people at once (for example, "add my grandparents on both sides"), it runs auto-arrange automatically — so the new relatives drop into place instead of piling on top of each other.
If names sit on top of the connecting lines or a generation looks crooked, auto-arrange is the one-step answer. It re-spaces everyone so labels and lines stop overlapping.
Move people by hand
You can also reposition anyone yourself. Make sure the Select tool is active (press V), then click a person and drag them anywhere on the canvas. To move several people at once, use box-select (press B) to draw a rectangle around them, then drag the group.
Manual dragging is best for small tweaks. If you've dragged things into a mess, don't untangle it by hand — just run auto-arrange again to reset the whole layout.
Move the key closer
The key (legend) is a draggable panel. Click and hold anywhere on it and drag it wherever you like — right next to the family, into an empty corner, anywhere. Its position is saved with your genogram, so it stays put. This is how you "move it closer to the key" without touching the family at all.
Recenter the view
If your genogram has drifted off-screen or feels lost, use the zoom controls in the bottom-right corner of the editor. The Center on Index button snaps the view back to your index person — the quickest way to find your place again after adding a big branch.
The same controls have zoom-in and zoom-out buttons (or hold Ctrl/Cmd and press + or -), and you can scroll to zoom in and out, which helps when you're dragging people in a dense area.
Undo any layout mistake
Every arrangement change — auto-arrange, a manual drag, moving the key — can be undone with the undo button in the top bar (or Cmd/Ctrl + Z). If auto-arrange moved something you'd positioned deliberately, one undo puts it back. There's a matching redo if you change your mind again. If the AI made the change, the assistant also has an Undo last AI change button.
Why it prints so small — and how to fix it
Large families print small because the whole chart is being squeezed onto one page. Two things help:
- Open Print from the file menu (top-left logo button, or Cmd/Ctrl + P). The print view has layout options — adjust the fit and orientation there so the genogram fills the page instead of shrinking.
- For big families, export a high-resolution image instead of printing the browser view. The High-Res (6x) PNG export (a Pro feature) produces a crisp file you can print large or drop into a document without it going blurry.
For the full rundown of print and PDF options, see the Printing & Saving as PDF article.