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Subject:Re: Indexing Tools for Word From:Sue Heim <SUE -at- RIS -dot- RISINC -dot- COM> Date:Thu, 29 Jun 1995 14:09:18 PST
Hi, Keith! I'm taking this offline, since it's more-or-less a direct
reply to you (although I may end up cc'ing the list if it looks
relevant).
> 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.
I had that problem (finding every single occurence) when I first
started working with indexes in D2H. Since then, I've learned the be
more selective about how I look for words. For example, in the manual
(that I just finished, sliding in there just on the deadline!!),
"issue" is a word that is used frequently and yet requires multiple
index entries (issue selection, issue deletion, issue that is opened,
issue subdirectory, and so on). Rather than entering "issue" as the
index target, I entered a more specific word (for example, "issue
selection," "issue subdirectory"). That way the program looked for
more specific occurences of the word, I could easily insert the
default index tags (rather than having to choose which of the index
tags could apply to the word "index"), and indexing went much easier
and faster.
I agree this is a bit of a work around, but I think it was an easy
one. Once again, I've no way to compare how long it would take to
generate an index for the manual (150 page manual, 8 pages of index
in 2 col/page) by hand versus using the D2H tools.
And looks like I'll post this to the list also. It is, after all,
relevant!!
...sue
sue
> 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;
> if you dont' bet, you can't win. --Robert A. Heinliein
