Narratives & Photos

Hey guys.

I’ve downloaded the Nachi Narratives template and I’m having some issues. When using the narratives template I find it difficult to place photos due to the fact that there are so many sections/subsections and also that they are not in alphabetical order. With this issue, it is hard to locate where I’ve placed them and is also taking a long time to organize them.
Is anyone else having this problem?
Does anyone have advice on how to place the pictures easily and quickly?

I chose this software because of the reviews stating it was easy to use. However, I am finding it frustrating.
If anyone has any tips, tricks, or advice, It’d be much appreciated.

The beautiful and frustrating thing about HIP is it’s very customizable, which also means you have to spend some time customizing it.

Also, if you’re taking about Kenton’s Nachi Narratives, yes, there are a lot of sub-sections, it is over whelming at first, and you will find you don’t need all of them.

Kenton’s Nachi Narratives are best looked at like an encyclopedia of narratives, where you can look up what you need, and pick and choose what fits your area.

I eliminated or combined many sub-sections to fit my area and my style.
I also moved some sub-sections around so they made more sense to me for when I’m on site.

There is a learning curve to HIP, but worth it in the end.

Hi Nicholas,

The InterNACHI narratives are not made by Home Inspector Pro, they’re made by Kenton Sheppard of InterNACHI. We have dozens of other templates in Home Inspector Pro when you purchase it.

As Ian stated, InterNACHI’s template is a MASSIVE (awesome) encyclopedia. The template is actually not recommended to be used as your actual inspection template because of it’s size. It includes sections and items for inspectors around the country, many won’t apply to your location. It’s a great place to find narratives that you need or to copy/paste the narratives that apply to your area, to the template of your choosing (this is easiest by opening two copies of HIP side by side).

If you need help with this, give us a call! 888-750-4777.

You can open 2 windows of HIP and copy and paste between them to create a template you like. If you use Kenton’s narratives the way they are you will die. It is setup to cover everything for all climates across the country. Make 2 copies and delete everything from one of them you know you do not need and go from there.

Hi Nicholas,

The first thing you should do is to create a working copy which you can then edit, saving the original in case you delete information that you would later like to retrieve.

Using the library efficiently is mostly about learning where things are and eliminating narratives that don’t apply. If you were in Miami, you could eliminate all narratives that comment on snow. Reducing the size of the library will speed the process of finding narratives.

In order to more quickly become familiar with library organization (and to speed finding narratives), I recommend that, especially at first, you use the “Edit Template” function (button located in the toolbar). This will give you a better overview of heading and subheadings organization quickly. It’s here that you can also edit the organization in a manner that makes more sense to you, including alphabetizing sub-headings if you like. I’ve listed some of the longer sub-heading lists alphabetically, and shorter ones have the most commonly used listed first. With organization, I’ve done my best, but you can never please everyone; people’s brains are wired differently.

You can then go to headings and subheadings in the normal part of the program and look through individual narratives, which are further separated by dotted lines and titles that help speed finding narratives by allowing you to look at narratives in groups of 4 or 5 (typically). It’s much faster than having to read through a long, unbroken list of narratives. You can often recognize what you’re looking for just by a glance at the group.

I give long and short versions of some common narratives (like those covering aluminum wiring and fire mitigation) and you can choose whether you want the additional protection from liability and additional information provided by longer narratives, or would rather keep the report shorter. Once your decision is made, the unwanted versions can be deleted. If at some point you change your mind, you can retrieve narratives from the safety copy.

1 Like

I could swear I’ve done this before, but I can’t get a second copy of HIP to open up. Is it because I’m on a Mac?

I wound up installing Parallels with Windows 10 and downloading HIP onto that, so I can now open two separate HIP screens and copy and paste between them.

Kenton, on a Mac you need to duplicate the HIP app. Just right click on the application under the applications folder and make a copy. Mac will then let you open a copy on each.

Kenton, Dom I purchased HIP and Kenton’s narrative library separately, so is Kenton’s library of narratives included in an HIP INACHI template?

No, Kenton is referring to the template library he sells. It’s an awesome library of narratives!

Git it, thanks Dominic