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The answer of course is that they should not be different. The
interesting question is "Why are they?". Until on-line information
is indexed as well (as densely?) as paper information, I'll stick to
the printed manual.
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I agree with Jan. An index should be a dense, rich collection of the ideas and
terms contained in the document. It's quality and value does not depend on the
delivered form of the document.
The only *difference* that I can immediately see between a printed index and an
online, hypertext version is that print versions can show page ranges. I have
yet to see a hypertext index with an equivalent construct.
Other than that, there is nothing inherently different about executing an index
on line or on paper. Most indexes fail for the a more pedestrian reason; the
people responsible for them were not given enough time to do a good job.
/chet
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Chet Ensign
Director, Electronic Publishing
Logical Design Solutions, Inc.
Phone: (908) 771-9221
Email: chet -at- lds -dot- com
Email(home): censign -at- interserv -dot- com
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