Re: Another use for batch spelling

[Carlo Caballero ccaball@xxxxxxxx]

Yes, but remember that this method only produces an index of names or
unique words. A full index requires marking ideas that may not be
expressed explicitly in the text. In addition to the formatting twist
mentioned by E. J. Inggs, I seem to recall that hyphenated names
("Faur?-Fremiet") require some extra work, too, as do "Inggs, E. J."
versus "Inggs, C. E.," which will both be cumulated under "Inggs" in the
automatic index. If you had a book in which you wrote about Henry James,
William James, and William James, Sr., hand-editing of the index markers
≪x1≫ would be extensive.

All this is not to denigrate the valuable index trick but to warn anyone
against thinking that compiling a good index is ever easy or automatic.

One other problem: XyWrite's internal limitations on memory sometimes
prevent you from generating an index across large files. This happened to
me with a five-chapter dissertation, and I had to give up the idea of an
index. You can only shorten the sorting parameter so much before you
start losing distinctions between entries. I would have been reduced to
indexing each chapter separately. I decided to give up the idea, but I
think I would try it again since I know in advance what the limitations
are.

Carlo Caballero

 On Tue, 8 Jul 1997, E J Inggs wrote:

> You can also use batch spell to index a book or long document by
> creating a dummy DICT.SPL with nothing in it so that the spell check
> dumps all the unique words to file (except the very common ones which
> seem to be built into EDITOR.EXE). Delete all the words you don't
> want in the index from the list, save it and then CORRECT
> [name_of_list_file],≪X1≫ - hey presto...
>
> The only catch is that there is a bug that puts the ≪X1≫ inside
> some other formatters, especially at the end of paragraphs and in
> footnotes - eg ≪MDNM≪X1≫≫ which makes the index marker invisible
> to the index gathering process. A series of simple search and
> changes fixes this annoyance in no time at all. Also don't forget to
> restore the original DICT.SPL when you have finished.
>