Formatting an Index in Publisher

[Jaypm55]

Hi there, could someone point me in the direction of a video or webpage on how to format an index? I've found the Serif one on inserting an index but it doesn't tell me how to format it. Should I be creating a style. See image of What I have which looks messy.

Many thanks. 

[Jaypm55]

3 hours ago, Jaypm55 said:

Hi there, could someone point me in the direction of a video or webpage on how to format an index? I've found the Serif one on inserting an index but it doesn't tell me how to format it. Should I be creating a style. See image of What I have which looks messy.

Many thanks. 

 

I think I've worked it out. I need to apply a style to the Index pages. Still would appreciate a video on best practices for this is there is one. 

[walt.farrell]

What kind of formatting do you want to do? It will be easier to make recommendations if you can also provide an example that looks somewhat like you'd like it to look. You could even hand-edit a few entries on that page within Publisher and give us another screenshot. Then we have something to help us understand your exact needs.

[Jaypm55]

@walt.farrell I ended up with this which is a bit better than what I had.

[MikeTO]

It looks like you got the hang of it. My index is similar to you, a long list of names, but I chose a ragged look like this:

S
  Salvation Army
       Earle, John,   172
       Smith, William,   48
  Scripture, Robert,   160
  Sharp, Alexander,   24–25
  Simpson, Ambrose and David,   338
  Simpson, Stephen,   79, 125, 221
  Sinclair, Alice and Frank,   44
  Stanley, Patrick,   117
  Stewart, William,   137, 299

I'm debating whether to remove the comma from after the first names, it looks a bit fussy with them. The only thing I'd like to do that Affinity can't handle is emphasize the key page for an index entry like this:

  Simpson, Stephen,   79, 125, 221

Affinity has a feature to do this (Style Override) but it doesn't work with facing pages. I recommend avoiding that feature and just living without the emphasis. Or adding that to your list of final steps to format manually before printing.

You might consider formatting your index with hanging indents for the page numbers like this: 

Campbell, Alice Zenobia........................ vii, ix, xii, 105, 109, 111, 115–117,
                                                                 119–122, 124–126, 128–129, 133

[Jaypm55]

@MikeTOThanks. I would prefer the hanging indent but haven't found out how to do those. Will do a search. Very new to this, my very first book in Publisher. What I'm finding too, is that the update index isn't working. I'm going through removing some entries or adding See Also, then updating, but nothings happening. I've tried highlighting the whole index, still nothing. The only way I've been able to update is to delete the lot and start again. Maybe I need to step away for a bit and get some shut eye. Thanks for your suggestions though. Much appreciated. 

[MikeTO]

The hanging indent part is easy. Just edit paragraph spacing for the index entry and set left indent to to the same value as the tab stop (i.e., if tab stop is 10p or 3" then set left indent to 10p or 3"). Affinity may automatically change first line indent but set it back to 0 and you'll now have your hanging indents.

I think you're going through the same issues I had a year ago. There's another bug with update index and it's on Serif's list to fix, too. Update Index works only if the index's text frame is on the page and not on a master page. See below for my bug report. In the meantime, there are a few workarounds and once you discover #3 you won't care about Update Index anymore.

1. For the index pages, give them their own master and draw the text frames directly on them. Update Index will work now.

2. Or if you want to keep the frames on the masters, you can simply delete and re-insert the index. To do this you have to select the entire index - if you miss even a space Affinity will think the index still exists. The easiest way to do it is to ensure the index frames aren't linked to the body of your book and to put only the index in the index frames. Put the title of the index in a separate frame above. Then you can put the cursor in the index, Select All, delete, and re-insert the index.

3. Or never use the Update Index feature again. Use Preflight and click its awesome Fix button for an outdated index.

 

[Jaypm55]

4 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

The hanging indent part is easy. Just edit paragraph spacing for the index entry and set left indent to to the same value as the tab stop (i.e., if tab stop is 10p or 3" then set left indent to 10p or 3"). Affinity may automatically change first line indent but set it back to 0 and you'll now have your hanging indents.

I think you're going through the same issues I had a year ago. There's another bug with update index and it's on Serif's list to fix, too. Update Index works only if the index's text frame is on the page and not on a master page. See below for my bug report. In the meantime, there are a few workarounds and once you discover #3 you won't care about Update Index anymore.

1. For the index pages, give them their own master and draw the text frames directly on them. Update Index will work now.

2. Or if you want to keep the frames on the masters, you can simply delete and re-insert the index. To do this you have to select the entire index - if you miss even a space Affinity will think the index still exists. The easiest way to do it is to ensure the index frames aren't linked to the body of your book and to put only the index in the index frames. Put the title of the index in a separate frame above. Then you can put the cursor in the index, Select All, delete, and re-insert the index.

3. Or never use the Update Index feature again. Use Preflight and click its awesome Fix button for an outdated index.

 

I hadn't given the Index Pages their own master. Hadn't thought to do that, I've been keeping it all pretty simple. I did see the Pre-flight fix but I thought it was fixing the TOC. Hadn't noticed if it did the index. Will try again tomorrow, I'm in Oz. Thanks again.