Re: indexing

[David Hickey <DHICKEY -at- ALIS -dot- COM>]

Greetings!

> >I have been asked to create an index in Word97 for a 400
> > page document.  I have no experience indexing and I need
> > to estimate the  amount of time it will take me to complete
> > the index.

The last time I had to create an index (in Word 97), the document was about
150 pages long. It took me a solid 3 days to complete the index for it (24
hours). The index was two tiered.

So I would say that for a 400 page document, you could estimate that it
would take about 2 weeks (ten working days).

I'm a great believer in indexing by hand (NOT using a concatenation file)
and no index entry should have more than two page number references. As a
hint on working with Word indexing, turn on hidden text (Options command in
the Tools menu, View tab) and check out how the Index entry is marked. Then
copy that Index entry and modify it by hand for each entry. It's faster than
using the dialog box.

For example, the Word index entry would look something like this:
{ XE "email virus:good times" }

This would create a two tiered index entry like this:
email virus
        good times 23

So if you had the following text, you could just copy the index entry and
modify the entry for each entry.
------------------------------------------------------------
p. 23
--------
Good Times" will re-write your hard drive. { XE "email virus:good times" }{
XE "good times" }{ XE "email virus" }

Not only that, but it will scramble any disks that are even close to your
computer. It will recalibrate your refrigerator's coolness setting so all
your ice cream goes all melty. { XE "email virus:refridgerator" }{ XE "email
virus:ice cream" }{ XE "email virus:melty" }{ XE "refridgerator" }{ XE "good
times:ice cream" }{ XE "good times:melty" }{ XE "email virus:disks" }{ XE
"email virus:scramble" }{ XE "good times:disks" }{ XE "good times:scramble"
}{ XE "disks" }{ XE "scramble" }{ XE "melty" }{ XE "ice cream" }
------------------------------------------------------------
Your resulting index would look like this:

disks 23
good times 23
        disks 23
        ice cream 23
        melty 23
        scramble 23
email virus 23
        disks 23
        ice cream 23
        melty 23
        scramble 23
ice cream 23
melty 23
scramble 23

Have fun! If you have any other questions, please contact me directly.
--
Be seeing you,

Dave
---------------------------------------------
John David Hickey
Montreal, Quebec, Canada eh?

dhickey -at- alis -dot- com
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Hills/7829/
wk: 514-747-2542 ext.: 317
pg: 514-205-9209

No trees were harmed in the writing of this email.
My emails are made from elephant tusks and dolphin meat.
---------------------------------------------
Don't confuse my opinion with my employer's.
Each exists in blissful ignorance of the other.


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