Re: I'm gonna be an Indexer!!

["Brierley, Sean" <Brierley -at- QUODATA -dot- COM>]

Lucky you!

>>>-----Original Message-----
>>>From: John Posada [mailto:jposada01 -at- YAHOO -dot- COM]

>>>I've never done a
>>>"real" index. (am I gonna have fun, or what??)

That's surprising, actually. It'll get tedious after the first 10 minutes. I
recommend a bottle of single-malt scotch.

>>>1) For someone who's never done indexing, if you could
>>>buy 1 book on indexing that would get me up to speed
>>>quickest AND that is currently in print (I don't want
>>>to spin my wheels waiting 4-6 weeks for shippment),
>>>what would it be, money is not a consideration.

I don't know. I've been indexing for years, which also somewhat equates to
experience and education through usability testing ;?). Anyway, try
http://www.amazon.com, http://www.barnesandnoble.com,
http://www.borders.com, et al., for a book.

>>>2) The manual will evenualy be converted to Word. I'm
>>>going to use mif2rtf for the conversion. (oy!, don't
>>>ask)  Would you do the indexing in Frame and then
>>>convert it over, or would you convert it, then index
>>>it in Word. I'm thinking more along the lines of which
>>>program has better indexing capabilities without
>>>add-ins.

I recommend you find out what mif2rtf's capabilities are for converting
index mnarkers from FrameMaker to Word. However, I'd index in Word, if only
to make life simpler, unless you are also creating PDF output . . . in which
case, I'd index in FrameMaker, create the PDF from Frame, and then convert
to Word (and probably would expect to have to re-do my index and other
xrefs).

>>>3) For a one-time indexing project (complex 450 page
>>>manual), would IXGEN be worth the investment, or would
>>>the learning curve negate the time it would save?

If you are only going to index one 450-page manual in the next few years,
then I'd skip IXgen. FrameMaker's capabilities are good enough.


All the best,

Sean
sean -at- quodata -dot- com


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