The Abstract View provides a single point of reference for the currently selected specimen record. When you're actively making changes to your data you'll need to use one or more of the specimen data entry views, but when you want to see it all together, you can use the Abstract View.

You can change the way the abstract is formatted by using the Customize settings . . . area. This is where you can choose which template to use as a basis for your abstract. There are two types of templates -- detail pages and summary tables. The detail page template that you choose will be used whenever a single specimen is selected. By contrast, the summary table template that you choose will be used whenever multiple specimen are selected.

An artificial limit to the number of records that are shown in the multiple selection templates is employed. This artificial limit is enforced as a way to prevent extremely large and time consuming abstracts from being generated accidentally. You can change this limit if you want to increase or decrease the number of records that can be included in a summary table abstract.

In addition to these customizations, you can also choose how each abstract is formatted -- which font face, point size, and colors are used.