Reports

The Rapports (Reports) section produces, from the catalogue and as archival PDF/A, two documents and a family of inventories.

The documents:

• Portfolio — an editorial document to show: to a gallery, a curator, an institution, a publisher, a jury. The image first, a sequence by series, one work per page, few facts (see The portfolio);
• Catalogue raisonné — the layout of a museum catalogue: cover, contents, an opening page per series, one entry per page, its image large, then the appendices: number concordance, index of titles, index of exhibitions and bibliography index (see The catalogue raisonné).

The inventories identify, locate and check the holdings: sober, dense management documents, in tables, in landscape, legible in black and white (see The inventories):

• General inventory — the register of the works, one line per work, then the completeness check. No value, no location, no holder;
• Insurance inventory — one line per print (the physical item): its location, its holder, its condition and its retained insured value, with its date and source. Internal;
• Inventory by location — the prints grouped by place, with the insured value of each place. Internal;
• Exhibition insurance schedule — the items of an exhibition or of a selection, and the total value to insure. Internal;
• Stocktake — the physical check sheet: each print, its expected location, then the presence, location and condition observed, blank or filled with the latest checks. Internal;
• Valuation statement — every value of each print side by side, each with its date, and their checks. Internal;
• Condition statement — the condition of each print, its note and its latest public interventions. Nothing confidential.

The Inventory no. of a record or of a line of the general inventory is the work’s; a work that has none shows its prints’, in edition order. It is never derived from the catalogue no., nor from a file’s identifier (the “file no.”, which reports do not print). See Catalogue no. and inventory no..

Produce a report

1. Choose the kind of report.
2. Set the options:
   • Document title, Subtitle, Author or institution (offered from Settings › Exports, like the paper size);
   • Works — Validated and published works, Published works, or All non-confidential works (drafts included: a working inventory); or Choose works… (see below);
   • Series — one series, or All series;
   • Paper — A4, US Letter or A3;
   • for the portfolio and the catalogue raisonné: Print images, Title page and Include “Made with Obscura Catalog” in the colophon. The portfolio and the catalogue raisonné are free in every plan; without a licence, the mention stays in the colophon, and the option, ticked, says why with Activate…. Any paid plan may remove it: the colophon then keeps the date alone (“Compiled on …”);
   • for the portfolio: Arrangement (By series, Chronological, Order of the selection when works are chosen, No grouping), Work records (Minimal: number and medium; Standard: number, medium, dimensions, edition, place), Cover image (the first work with an image) and Index of works (see The portfolio);
   • for the general inventory: Hide identical columns and Add the completeness check (see below);
   • for the internal inventories: Items (Items held or Every print), Order, Include confidential works and the Reason for including confidential data, required; for the stocktake, Stocktake campaign and Fill in with the latest checks; for the schedule, Items of the schedule (an exhibition, or the works of the report), Item without a value, Thumbnails, Framed dimensions and Lenders (see The inventories).
3. Catalog shows how many works the report will contain (for the schedule of an exhibition, how many objects it hangs).
4. Save the PDF…, and choose where to save it (the suggested name is the document title, or the kind of report).

When no work matches, Catalog says why instead of greying out the button without a word: a catalogue in progress often has only drafts, and Include all works widens the report to every non-confidential work.

The report shows its progress while it is produced; you can interrupt it (“Cancelled. No file was kept.”). At the end, “Report saved: 12 works, 14 pages.” — Open shows it. If images could not be read (a disk unplugged, files moved), Catalog says so under this message: the portfolio marks them “Source file not found”. Plug the disk back in and save the PDF again.

The portfolio

The catalogue raisonné documents, the inventory lists; the portfolio shows and builds a sequence. It reads like an exhibition catalogue:

• the cover (Title page option): large, the artist when every work has the same author; otherwise what you typed in Author or institution (“Atelier Nora Vidalenc”, or the artist’s name when the selection also holds an assistant’s works). With Cover image, the image of the first work that has one; under it, the document title and the works’ period (“Selected works · 2022–2023”), the subtitle, the number of works and the edition date in words (“Edition of 26 October 2026”);
• the contents, when there are several parts: each series, then the works outside a series, with their numbers (“NV-001 — NV-004”, “NV-023-A/B”), their number of works and their page;
• an opening page per series of at least two works, on lightly tinted paper: “SERIES 01”, its name, its period and place (when all its works share one), its introduction in italics (entered in Settings › Catalogue › Series defaults) and, for three to twelve works, their sequence; at the foot, its numbers and number of works. A series of a single work has no opening page;
• one page per work: the image first, then the title, the artist and the date (“Nora Vidalenc · 30 May 2022”), a few facts (Catalogue, Medium, Dimensions, Edition, Place; with the Minimal record, the number and the medium only) and the description. The edition fits on one line, read from the recorded prints: “Edition of 8 + 2 AP”, “Unique work”, “Limited edition” when no size is entered; the copy-by-copy detail stays in the catalogue raisonné. An empty fact is not printed, nor its label;
• the index of works: number, title, series and page of each work;
• the colophon: “Made with Obscura Catalog” and the date (any paid plan may remove the mention, see Produce a report), the number of works and reproductions, the layout (“portfolio, model 2”), an export identifier, and what a report never prints. When a reproduction is excluded, it counts the excluded reproductions and the images not available separately.

Every page but the cover carries in its footer the name of its part (the series, “CONTENTS”, “INDEX”) and its number. The document has bookmarks (the contents, each series and its works, the index, the colophon), and the lines of the contents, of the sequence and of the index are links to their page.

The arrangement. By series (the default): the series in the order of their first work, each with its opening page, the works outside a series last; within a series, the order of the selection when works are chosen, else the catalogue order. Chronological: one sequence, by date, works without a date last. Order of the selection: one sequence, in the order the works were chosen. No grouping: one sequence, in catalogue order. Without grouping, no contents and no series pages. Nothing is sorted by title.

The image is sized for its real shape, never cropped or distorted: an upright image takes up to a little over half the page’s height, a square one a little less than the width, a wide one the whole width, a panorama the whole width, uncropped. A small image is never enlarged beyond 150 ppi: it stays small rather than soft. The image gives up some room, down to seven tenths of its size, so that the text fits on its page; a longer description runs on to the next page, under the reminder “NV-001 — Title — continued”.

A work without an image keeps its page: a light frame says “IMAGE NOT AVAILABLE”, and under it what explains it when the catalogue knows.

An excluded reproduction (record, Reproduction exclusion, see Scholarly notice) is never printed, even when its image is there: the frame says “REPRODUCTION EXCLUDED”, and under it its reason (“REPRODUCTION RIGHTS NOT OBTAINED”, “AT THE REQUEST OF THE ARTIST OR THE ESTATE”, “AT THE HOLDER’S REQUEST”, “OTHER REASON”). Its file is not even read: it does not count among the missing images.

Documentary statuses say, in small capitals, what the catalogue establishes about how the work is known, and only that:

An attributed or studio work says so on the artist line (“Attributed to Malo Ternier”); an approximate date, by its form (“circa 2022”).

Variants. Two works of one number (NV-023-A and NV-023-B), or linked by a Variant or Preparatory work relation, refer to each other: “VARIANT NV-023-B — Épi de blé p. 15”, a link to its page. Only when the other work is in the portfolio. Two similar titles never make a variant. The other relations, the provenance, the exhibitions, the bibliography, the rights and the conservation stay in the catalogue raisonné. States: a work with a state rank prints it before its facts (“STATE II”); an Other state relation refers to the other work under its rank (“STATE I NV-010 — Brume p. 12”), or “OTHER STATE” when the other work has no rank.

The catalogue raisonné

The catalogue raisonné reads like a museum catalogue:

• the cover (Title page option): the title, the subtitle, the author or institution, the number of works, the edition date;
• About this catalogue: the artist (when every work has the same author), the author or institution, the corpus, the series, the period documented, the works included, the edition and the source; the catalogue introduction, its rules of inclusion and its conventions, when Settings › Catalogue › Catalogue introduction gives them; then what the catalogue never prints;
• the contents: each series, the works outside a series, the appendices and the colophon, with their pages;
• an opening page per series: its title, its period, its number of works, three images of its works (Print images option) and its introduction, entered in Settings › Catalogue › Series defaults;
• one entry per page: “Work 01 · NV-007”, the title, the date and the series, the reference image large (or, in its place, Reproduction excluded and its reason, or Reproduction unavailable), then the entry in three parts: Work, Physical print and Documentation (see What the entry prints). A long entry continues on the next page, which opens with its running heading: “NV-001 — The terrace, from the door — continued”;
• the appendices: the number concordance, under its column headings Reference, Order, Title and Page, the index of titles (title, catalogue no., page) and, when works are exhibited or cited, the index of exhibitions and the bibliography index, each exhibition or publication with the works it cites;
• the colophon: the date, the number of entries and reproductions and, when a reproduction is excluded, the excluded reproductions and the images not available; the document’s typeface.

Check before export. Save the PDF… first reads the data checks of the catalogue’s works (see Data checks): completeness, consistency and documentation, reading nothing confidential, like the report itself. When they find something, the Check before export sheet says so: how many works are affected, the findings by family and severity, then the list, work by work, in catalogue order (the first 500; beyond, their number). It warns and never blocks: Continue… chooses the file and writes the catalogue, Cancel goes back to the options to correct first. Nothing from this check is printed in the PDF. Without findings, the sheet does not open; when the checks cannot be read, it says so and the export remains possible. The portfolio and the inventory have no such check.

Entries are grouped by series, in the order of each series’ first work; works outside a series come last. Within a series, the order is the catalogue’s, and the rank (“Work 01”) follows the printed order. An empty part is not printed: no series page without a series, no index without an entry, no row or section without a value. Every page but the cover carries in its footer the artist (or the author), the catalogue’s title and its page number; the contents, the concordance and the index of titles give the exact pages.

No page holds only the last lines of an entry. When a few lines would spill over (the condition and the rights, say), the entry is tightened: its spacing first, then its image, down to two thirds of its height. When that is not enough, the section before them moves with them to the next page. A paragraph of four lines or fewer is never split, and a longer one leaves at least two lines on each side of the break.

Finding your way in the PDF. The document has bookmarks: About this catalogue, the contents, each series with its works (“NV-001 — The terrace, from the door”), the works outside a series, each appendix and the colophon. Its cross-references are links: a line of the contents opens its part; a line of the concordance or of the index of titles, a work cited in the index of exhibitions or in the bibliography index, and a related work open its record.

The whole document is set in a single sans-serif family: SF Pro, macOS’s font, embedded in the PDF. The hierarchy comes from weight, size and spacing.

PDF/A. The catalogue is written to PDF/A-2b, and Catalog refuses a file whose archival metadata could not be written. Its conformance is checked by veraPDF on sample documents, not on every file produced: the colophon therefore claims no conformance. For a repository that requires it, have the file validated by the institution’s tool.

The inventories

Catalogue raisonné: knowing the work. Portfolio: showing it. Inventory: identifying, locating and checking the holdings.

The four inventories share one layout: a header (the title, the author or institution, “State as of 26 October 2026, 14:05”), summary cards (counts and totals), a panel of alerts, then the table, whose column headings repeat on every page; a line is never split across two pages. The footer carries the title, the current place (inventory by location) and the page number; the colophon, at the end, states the state of the data, the export identifier and the rules applied.

Reliable information. An inventory goes to an insurer, a carrier or a museum: nothing in it is computed, deduced or invented.

• One read. The report reads the whole library in one read transaction: what is written while it is generated does not enter it, and its totals describe the same state as its lines. Generating a report writes nothing to the library.
• A missing fact prints “—”, and the alerts flag it.
• The item is the print. Each print is counted once, with its catalogue no. and its print number. The inventory no. is the print’s; the work’s is printed followed by “(work)”, never passed off as the print’s. A location comes from the print, never from the work. A work without a print is not an item: it is listed separately, under Works without a physical item, neither counted nor valued.
• The retained value is the most recent insured value by date; an undated value comes after the dated ones; on the same date, the last entered. It prints with its date, source, appraiser and supporting document. Never a public price, an edition tier or another value. A value without a date or a source is shown, flagged “undated” or “no source”: to check. A value older than the threshold of Settings › Catalogue (three years by default) is “to reassess”, and the report states the threshold.
• Totals are per currency: “EUR 42,600 · USD 12,000”. No exchange rate, no rounding before the sum; a value without a currency is totalled separately. Each total is the sum of its lines: a report where one would not be is refused.
• Items held. The insurance inventory and the inventory by location cover by default the prints in stock, consigned and on loan; a print sold, given, lost or destroyed is no longer held, and the colophon says how many are left out. Every print brings them back, flagged “no longer held”.
• Confidential works stay out of the inventories, except in an internal inventory whose Include confidential works option is ticked (see below). Without the option, an internal inventory says first in its alerts that its totals are incomplete, with the number of works and prints left out. A confidential agent is named in none, not even as a holder, appraiser or checker.
• Demo data. A value whose note holds “fictitious demo data” (or « données fictives de démonstration ») prints starred (“EUR 2,800 *”), and the report says these amounts are not real values.

Order (internal inventories): Number (catalogue order, then the prints’), Inventory no., Title, Author, Date, Location, Value (by currency, highest first) or Order of the selection (of a selection, or of an exhibition’s hanging). Every order ends with the identifier: two reports of the same items print them in the same order.

The general inventory

The register of the works, one line per work, in catalogue order. At the top, the cards: works, inventory numbers assigned, published, validated, drafts and works to complete; then Points to complete, the count of each finding. It carries no value, no location, no holder, no confidential mention, and is printed in every plan.

• Date: a short form, the same on every line, computed from the sort dates and their precision: “1974” (year, month or day known), “c. 1974” (circa), “1970–1975” (range), “1970s” (decade). The “Date as published” you wrote (“circa 1974, perhaps 1975”) stays the record’s and the catalogue raisonné’s: it is not used in the inventory, where a column must read at a glance, except for a work without sort dates: it then keeps its written date, on one line. With neither, the cell prints “—”.
• Technique (technique and support): two lines at most, then “…”. The other cells stay on one line, cut with “…” at the edge of their column. A line is as tall as its tallest cell; a line that no longer fits at the foot of the page moves to the next one, under the table header drawn again.
• Empty columns: a column empty for every work of the report (no print, no attribution, no date) is not printed; its width is shared among the others.
• Hide identical columns: a column with the same value for every work (the inventory of a single author, of a single technique) leaves the table, and its value is stated once under the report’s title (“Author: Jeanne Valory”): nothing is lost. It takes two works at least; the option is off by default.
• The catalogue number is always printed.
• Completeness check (Add the completeness check, on by default): a section separate from the register, listing the works that lack an inventory no., an author, a date, a technique, dimensions or a reference image, or whose inventory no. is a potential duplicate (see Data checks). A complete work is not listed. The location, confidential, is checked in the internal inventories.

The internal inventories

The insurance inventory, the inventory by location, the exhibition schedule, the stocktake and the valuation statement are internal management documents: they print values, holders, locations and, for the schedule, lenders, which are confidential.

• Reason. Before saving the PDF, fill in the Reason for including confidential data (“Insurance contract renewal”): without it, Save the PDF… stays greyed out, and the reason shows next to the button (as when there is nothing to print, or during the check before export). Once the report is written, Catalog notes it in the log of confidential exports (Settings › Privacy, format “Internal report (PDF)”) under the identifier printed in the colophon, with the number of values, holders, lenders and locations printed. If this note cannot be written, the report is not kept. The reason is cleared after each report: one report, one decision.
• Marking. Every page carries “CONFIDENTIAL — MANAGEMENT DOCUMENT”.
• Confidential works. Include confidential works (off by default) brings in the confidential works of the scope and their prints, under the same reason; the log counts the confidential works included. Off, the panel of alerts opens on “Incomplete totals: …”, with the number of works and prints left out.
• Licence. The insurance inventory, the inventory by location, the schedule and the valuation statement need a Pro or Studio plan; without one, the screen says so with Activate…. The general inventory, the stocktake and the condition statement are free.

Insurance inventory. The cards: items, items valued, retained insured value (one line per currency), locations, items without a value and files to check. Then the Alerts (values without a date, without a source, to reassess, without a currency, items to locate, similar spellings of a place, works without a physical item) and the Register of the items and values: the item (catalogue no., then print no.), the inventory no., the title and author, the technique, the dimensions (and “Framed: …” when the frame is measured), the edition, the location, the holder, the condition, the value and its date, the source and appraiser, the supporting document, and the line’s Check. Under the table, “Total per currency”.

Inventory by location. One group per place, as typed in the print: case and spaces do not count (“Atelier – Paris” and “atelier – paris” are one place, printed in the most frequent spelling), but two similar spellings (“Réserve” and “Reserve”) make two places: they are never merged, and the alerts flag them so that you harmonise them in the prints. Items without a location form the To locate group, last. The Summary by location gives each place, its items, its value per currency and its items without a value, then the total: the places always sum to the total. Each place then has its section, with its count and totals.

Exhibition insurance schedule. Items of the schedule: an exhibition (its objects, in hanging order) or The works of the report and their prints (the selection, scope and series). At the top: the exhibition, its venue, its period, its organiser, the artist and the lender (“see each item” when there are several). For each item: the number, a thumbnail (the preview of the reference image, its ratio kept, never cropped), the item, the title and author, the date, the technique, the dimensions, the framed dimensions, the edition, the lender and the value. Then, boxed, the TOTAL VALUE TO INSURE, one line per currency.

• Item without a value: Blocks the schedule (the default: the PDF is not written, and Catalog says how many items have no value) or “Value to establish”, left out of the total (the line says so, and the total says how many items it does not count).
• A work hung without its print named (the exhibition names the work, not the print hung) prints on a line of its own, flagged “print not named”, without a value: it is never replaced by one of the work’s prints. Name the print in the exhibition.

Stocktake. The physical check sheet, one line per print: the item, its inventory no., the work, its expected location (the print’s), then the observed columns: location, presence, condition, anomaly, date, checker. Choose a Stocktake campaign to print its title, period and responsible person. Without Fill in with the latest checks, the observed columns stay blank, with lines tall enough to write on site. With it, each line shows the print’s latest check (in the chosen campaign, if any); the cards count the items present, moved, absent, to check and not checked, and the alerts flag the absent items and those found elsewhere than their expected location. The report records no check, and a check never changes a print’s location or status. Recording checks in the app will come later.

Valuation statement. Every value of each print side by side, each the most recent of its kind and with its date: Production, Public price (the print’s own, or “edition tier”), Acquisition (the amount of the latest “acquisition” provenance event of this very print, never a work’s or a sale estimate), Estimate and Insured value (with its source). Each line’s Check: insurance missing or to reassess (settings threshold), different currencies in the line, public price newer than the insurance, a value without a date or a source. No value is converted or deduced, and a line is never said to be “consistent” because a value exists.

Condition statement (prepared). Each print’s condition, condition note and two latest public interventions (date, kind, conservator, reference, “document attached”). It prints nothing confidential: no confidential intervention, cost, internal note, document title, status, location or value; it covers every print, without a reason. Interventions on the work itself stay in the catalogue raisonné. Structured alterations and recommendations await a condition report model.

Report from a selection of works

A report can cover exactly the works you choose, whatever their status (drafts included):

• from Œuvres (Works): select several works in the list (⌘-click, ⇧-click, or Select all matching), then Report from the selection… in the “n works selected” panel (see Batch editing). The Rapports section opens with these works;
• from Rapports: Choose works… opens the list of works that can go into a report. Search by number or title, tick the works (Tick the works shown ticks the whole result of a search), then Use these works.

The Works line then shows “n chosen works” instead of the scope and the series. Change the choice… reopens the list, Back to the scope returns the report to its validated, published or all works. The catalogue raisonné and the inventory print the works in catalogue order; the portfolio keeps the order of the selection: that of the Œuvres (Works) list at Report from the selection…, or the catalogue order for works ticked in Choose works….

A confidential work never goes into a report, even when chosen: the list does not offer it, and if the Works selection holds some, Catalog says how many are left out of the report (confidential, or deleted since). If none of the chosen works can go in, it says so, with Change the choice….

Confidentiality

Confidential works, confidential provenance, confidential agents and internal notes are excluded from every report; no option includes them.

A confidential agent (photographer, provenance party, auction house, exhibition venue, printer, conservator, rights holder, holder, appraiser, lender) is named in no report: the record is printed as if no agent were given.

The internal inventories print the retained insured value, the holder, a print’s location and the lender of an object hung, only after the reason for including confidential data is given and noted in the log (see The internal inventories). They print no other kind of value (production, public price, estimate), no provenance or sale amount, no internal note.

The portfolio, the catalogue raisonné, the general inventory and the condition statement are made to be shown outside: no price or amount is ever printed in them (neither a provenance’s, nor the estimates and hammer price of an auction sale, even a public one, nor the cost of an intervention), nor a print’s values, nor a print’s current holder or location, nor where a work is kept. A confidential conservation intervention is not printed, nor a relation to a confidential work.

What the entry prints

The catalogue raisonné prints the entry as a catalogue reads it, with nothing confidential, in three parts that never mix: the work, its prints, and what the catalogue knows of it. An empty part is not printed.

Work — what the work is and who made it:

• the author and, separately, the status of the attribution: Attributed, Studio work, Disputed, or Not established when the work has no accepted attribution or its author is unknown. A secure attribution says nothing beyond the name: that is a catalogue raisonné’s convention. A confidential author is not named, but the status stays;
• the work’s date, the state rank (“State: II”), the other titles (with their kind and language), the series, type, genre, place, technique, support, film / sensor, format, artistic project, circumstances of creation, the inventory no., the former numbers, the existence (“Destroyed”).

Physical print (Physical prints when the work has several) — the prints that exist:

• the edition in one line, read from the recorded prints: “Edition of 8 + 2 AP”, “(edition closed)” when a print says so;
• the copies, named without ambiguity: “3/8” for a copy of the edition, “AP 1/2” for an artist’s proof (the first of two), “PP 1/1” and “HC 2/3” for a printer’s proof and a copy hors commerce, “Exhibition print”, “Unique copy”, “Open edition”; “Unnumbered” or “AP” alone when the number is not entered: no number is invented. The copies of the edition come first, then the proofs, then the prints outside the numbering;
• what every print shares, written once: the print date, the period (“Vintage print”), the process (unless it repeats the technique), the paper and its toning, the dimensions, the mount, the printer, the signature as written on the print (“Signed on the back “N. V. 22””), the inscriptions, the condition;
• under Prints, one line per copy for what is its own, under its label (“AP 1/2: 1980, condition: fair”); a copy with nothing of its own has no line.

Documentation — what the catalogue knows of the work, and where from:

• the description, the artist’s statement, the history, the analysis under the heading Critical commentary;
• the attribution rationale: the argument of the accepted attribution, who established it and when (“By Jean Dupont, 12 March 2020”), and its published evidence (“Source: Varrault 2025, p. 42”), when the argument or the evidence is entered. Nothing for an anonymous attribution or one whose author is confidential;
• the dating rationale;
• the sources: each document of the work and of its prints (Documents tab), its kind, title, date and reference (“Correspondence: Letter to J. Dupont, 12 March 1975, ref. AV 12”), and the copy it documents (“copy AP 1/2”). A letter the description quotes is therefore attached to the work with its reference: the entry gives it as a source. A confidential document is never printed, nor the proof of a confidential event or intervention, nor the justification of a value; nor is a document’s internal note;
• the publishable provenance, with an event’s auction sale (house, sale, date, lot, outcome: never an amount); the exhibitions; the bibliography, one line per citation: a monograph the description mentions, or that an attribution gives as its evidence, joins it by being cited for the work (Publications tab);
• the related works, each with the nature of the link as it reads from the entry, the other work’s catalogue number and title, and its page when the catalogue prints it (“Variant of NV-009, Hanging plant”, with “p. 42” at the end of the line): Related to, Variant of, Same negative as, Same sitting as, Preparatory for (on the preparatory work), Prepared by (on the work it prepared), State I: (another state, under the other work’s rank; Other state of when it has none). A work this catalogue does not print is cited without a page; a confidential work never is;
• the conservation: the work’s condition and the public interventions (date, kind, print, conservator, description, condition observed);
• the rights: the rights statement, then each line (rights holder, licence, licence terms, reproduction restrictions, expiry).

A date entered in a numeric form (“2022-05-31”, “31/05/2022”, “2022-05”) is printed in a single form, in the app’s language: “31 May 2022”, “May 2022” (“31 mai 2022” in French). A written date (“circa 1974, perhaps 1975”) is printed as it is.

The documents’ files are not printed, only their reference: the CSV, LIDO and CIDOC exports describe them, and the full export copies them (see Exporting the catalogue). The inventory keeps its content.

Images

The images are the works’ reference images, read from the library’s files. They are placed whole, without cropping or distortion.