Narrative-Type versus Photo-Type Reports

[gtblum]

Hear, hear!

Quote: Sixty-page reports? Sweet Baby Jesus!

Nobody is going to read a sixty page report. When the plantiffs lawyer tells the judge your report is sixty pages, the judge is going to wince and shake his or her head.

I'll go slower this time.

I use larger pictures....... They take up more room......... I include an "overall view" picture (or two) at the beginning of a report section........ It takes up more room........ When you use larger pictures, two of them can fill one page of the report....... That means more pages.

Most lawyers would have understood this the first time I explained it.

Great thread! Good discussion.

[Chris Bernhardt]

I use larger pictures....... They take up more room.........

I guess that's another topic for discussion. What's a reasonable size for a photo in the report. I fit 8 to a page and PDF it. One can always zoom in and make a pic fill the screen.

Chris, Oregon

[Erby]

It's great that we can all do it the way that works best for us.

I've always done photos, lots of them for the record, only important ones for the report. I keep em all, disk space is cheap.

I started with Palm-Tech. Yeah the glitz got me. (for a couple thousand I might add) (later I also added "dumbass").

Put the report together. (not much flexibility.)

Put the photo album together.

Caption the photos.

I finally switched to HomeGauge because I can make it do what I (did I say I) want without having to computer program.

And I don't "have to" (though I can) caption the photos.

The photos are just slipped into the report under the appropriate comment.

Here's some screen shots.

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I drag or doubleclick the photos in the film strip at right and they open in an editing window to size them as I choose and option to add all the circles, arrows, text, etc. Photos in the film strip are greyed out so I know I used them in the report.

Report writing is (for me) done by going down the film strip and commenting - inserting photos as needed for the defects. When I'm done with the photos, I use the "Find next unanswered" to fill in the blanks that I haven't answered yet, styles & materials type stuff.

The report itself looks like:

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It has all the SOP junk I need to cover in the main report. I write it, but I can't make em read it.

The report summary looks like:

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That's the defective stuff (and a little marketing at the front of it).

Here's a multi-page view. It shows comments and photos together.

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I agree that it's great we can discuss this stuff without the flames & rancor that are common on other boasrds.

To each their very own!

[Michael Carson]

I converted to using a laptop 5 years ago and folks also thought I was nuts. I label a disc and put all the photo's on the disc so the client can go through the report and follow along with the pictures if need be. Seemed no matter how plainly I explained the situation, frequently someone would call, usually a Realtor and ask if I could E mail them a picture. So..I started placing photo's in the report. I don't go crazy with them, only insert a picture when I find something really wrong that a picture needs to clarify.

I have found that you have to be very comfortable with whatever system you use for reporting before you add photo's as there can be alot of editing. This especially goes for those who print/burn/signal flare the report onsite.

My clients seem to like it and the calls for pictures have stopped. When I go over the report onsite with the client, I have the photos I burn to the disc up on the screen as well and I walk them through the report and explain with the detailed picture. Showing the photo's like that is good in my opinion because I can show the folks their attic area, crawlspace, roof, etc because the client is not going to climb up/in there and I feel that they are more informed about the inspection and feel good that I actually went around and inspected everything.

The file size is about 1-2MB depending on what it is duplex, etc. I can upload the report on the server and send a link so I am not killing anyone's E mail.

Thank you.