Re: Indexing Tools for Word

[Keith Soltys <ksoltys -at- IO -dot- ORG>]

In article <199506291547 -dot- LAA20841 -at- io -dot- org> Sue Heim wrote:
>Keith Soltys wanted info on indexing tools for WinWord6. Mike
>Szczepanik suggested:

>> Some of you regular Doc-to-Help users should explain what that product
>> adds to Word for Windows' indexing capabilities.  I evaluated a copy
>> of D2H a couple of years ago and was very impressed with this feature
>> of the program.

>I've not really spent much time indexing in Word itself. D2H allows
>you to create an index target list, and then tags that go along with
>the target. What happens is that you create the target list (these
>are the words that the program is looking for in your manual). You
>can set up the program so that an index tag is created automatically,
>or so that you are prompted to choose the tag you want inserted at
>that point. Once you have your target/tag list set up, D2H scans
>through all your chapters and either inserts a tag or stops and asks
>you for the tag you want inserted. When done, you simply (D2H does
>this) convert the D2H tags to XE fields, and then gen your index.
>Easy? Not really, and you really need to understand how your want
>your index to be before you start. Once you figure that out, then
>it's not too difficult.

>Want more info? Let me know...

Well, I looked at the Doc-to-Help manual and I don't like the way
they implement the indexing. I don't want a program to search for all
occurrences of an index term and prompt me at each occurrence. That's
just too time consuming. I know when I want to enter a term and where
I want it to go -- I want only the most significant occurences of a
word to be indexed and I know where those are. It would be nice to be
able to select from a popup list of terms, if just to avoid silly mistakes
like indexing under "file" and "files". But if I had to sit there and
figure out whether I wanted to add an index entry at every occurrence
of the word "file" in my manual, I'd go nuts.

For example, I just ran a count of the word "file" across the manual
I'm working on now.  There are 161 occurences. Figuring 5 seconds to
accept or reject each proposed index entry, that's about 13 minutes.
And that's just one word.

I can do it faster and better myself.

Now, if I can use the Doc-to-Help indexing tool to input the index
entries _just_  where _I_ want them, then that's another matter.

Regards,
Keith

     ------------------------------------------------------------------
     Keith Soltys   --  ksoltys -at- io -dot- org  --  http://www.io.org/~ksoltys/
   Technical Writer, Technical Development, Dow Jones Telerate Canada Inc.
     ------------------------------------------------------------------
          Certainly the game is rigged. Don't let that stop you;
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