Re: Index-creation software

[Alan Heubert aheubert@xxxxxxxx]

The main limitation I've discovered with indexing in XyWrite is indexing
not merely points in the text, but actual passages. This isn't a problem if
you already know where the page breaks will fall. If you don't, though, or
if you'd like to be able very simply to recompile your index if the
pagination does change in a subsequent edition, it's a problem. I found
ways to work around this in XyWrite, but they were quite cumbersome. I
eventually ended up doing the indexes in Word, which was much better. Word
also had it's problems, though: mostly that the macro I wrote sometimes
executed excruciatingly (and mysteriously) slowly. In future, I think I'll
use dedicated indexing software, about which I've read good things.

Alan

At 07:54 AM 8/24/1999 -0400, you wrote:
>
>
>Jayharlow@xxxxxxxx wrote:
>
>> My company has indexed all its books with XyW in DOS. It's an easy procedure,
>> creating a dummy file with pages corresponing to the book pages and creating
>> index entries with the [x1] command. If anyone wants more details I'd be
>> happy to provide them.
>>
>> Jay Harlow
>
> I've also made indexes of scholarly books using XyIII and XyIV, and have found
>it perfectly easy. What would an indexing program do extra? The real pain,
>after all, is deciding what you're going to index, and what categories you're
>going to choose for your index headings, and no program (I think) can do
that for
>you.
>
>Assuming that you're not going to cheat and simply have a name index. But
>there's a special circle of hell (in an unpublished annex to the _Inferno_)
>reserved for writers and publishers who resort to that cop-out.
>
>Nick Clifford
>
>
>