Re: Number of index items per page?

[RAHEL A BAILIE <rbailie -at- NEWBRIDGE -dot- COM>]

Of my 1000 pages of content, I end up with a 38-page, 2-column index. My rule of
thumb (based on a workshop taken many years ago) is approx. 2 entries per
heading, and more if "stray facts" appear in the section. I define stray facts
as pieces of information that a user might not find by looking through the ToC
or in an obvious place.

In other words, if a ToC section is on Alarms, and something about fire
extinguishers got mentioned in the context of setting off alarms, the listings
might look like this:

alarms
  fire, 3.1-1
  fire extinguishers, 3.1-2
  gas, 3.2-1
  smoke, 3.1-2

fire alarms
  extinguishers setting off, 3.1-2
  setting off, 3.1-1

gas alarms
  alarms, 3.2-1

fire extinguishers
  alarms, setting off, 3.1-2
  inspection, 9.1-7
  installation, 9.1-1

My experience has been that I could have found the information in the
"predictable references" by using the ToC, but the "unexpected" references have
proven quite useful.

"Bowes, Rebecca A" wrote:

>         I took an indexing workshop several years ago and I seem to recall
> that the instructor said a common ratio was one page of index for each ten
> pages of manual. So, if you have a 350-page manual, for example, you'd
> probably have a 35-page index. However, I suspect that the ratio of index
> pages to manual pages really varies quite a bit depending on the complexity
> of the manual's content.

Rahel Anne Bailie, Senior Technical Writer
ATMnet Customer Documentation Group
Newbridge Networks Corp (Newbridge West)
400-4190 Still Creek Drive, Burnaby, BC  V5C 6C6


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