Publisher Index grouped page ranges

[philipt18]

This shouldn't be possible, right?

First, there's a range of two pages. I thought ranges had to have a minimum of three pages? Second, the following 6 pages are not included in the range. If Group page ranges is on, then it should read '133-140, 391', right? How is it possible that some pages are groups and others are not?

[Hangman]

Running a quick test, I'm seeing something similar, while the first grouping does show the first three pages I'm not sure why it doesn't just show 1-9, 11...

[MikeTO]

@Hangman What is different about the marker on page 4 compared to page 3?

I've been trying to replicate this without success. I tried putting the marker at the start, middle, and end of a paragraph, at the start, middle, and end of a word, in a second frame on page 4, in a second column on page 4, as the last character on page 4. Can you look at your test document and see if there is anything unusual that might trigger it? Or share this test doc?

[Hangman]

4 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

What is different about the marker on page 4 compared to page 3?

Absolutely nothing... though I've just figured out the cause but I'm unsure whether or not the behaviour is expected...

The document has two sections...

• Section 1 - Pages 1 to 3
• Section 2 - Pages 4 to 12

Remove Section 2 and the Index Page numbering then reads 1-9, 11, instead of 1-3, 4-9, 11.

[MikeTO]

@Hangman That's it. Publisher has a very limited page range feature, it just supports page ranges to the end of the section. I don't think this is a bug, it's just a really simple feature.

Most page layout apps allow you to set the type of an index marker which Publisher does not. Publisher effectively has two types - Current Page and "To end of section". It needs a Type list in the insert marker dialog so that you can explicitly choose "to end of section" or "to end of document" or "to end of story", as well as things like to next style change, to next use of style X, for next number of pages or for next number of paragraphs.

[philipt18]

I use sections for page headers, and this book has different headers almost every page. Why would Publisher link indexing to sections? That doesn't seem to match the intention of page groups in an index. This should be considered a bug.

[MikeTO]

3 minutes ago, philipt18 said:

I use sections for page headers, and this book has different headers almost every page. Why would Publisher link indexing to sections? That doesn't seem to match the intention of page groups in an index. This should be considered a bug.

If chapter 1 is about Apples and chapter 2 is about Bananas and if on the first page of chapter 2 you write "In the previous chapter we described the qualities of Apples and now we're going to talk about Bananas", you wouldn't want the index to include the first page of chapter 2. Apples may be on that page but most indexes don't include every mention of the term, just the ones that a reader might want to reference.

Serif hasn't gotten around to adding a Type feature to index marks yet so I assume that when choosing which of the page range features to implement they selected "to end of section" thinking it was the most useful of the options commonly offered by page layout apps. You might have wished they had chosen the "to end of document" option but I can see why they did it the way they did so I really don't think this is a bug. InDesign offers "to end of section" feature, too, although it has the full set of options.

 

[philipt18]

Mike, I think you were the one who got me to use sections to determine the header text. So I blame you. 🙂

[MikeTO]

1 hour ago, philipt18 said:

Mike, I think you were the one who got me to use sections to determine the header text. So I blame you. 🙂

Haha. It's definitely my fault.

[philipt18]

Either way, Publisher should allow groups to be based on the whole document instead of sections. They should limit the usage like that. The output, like above, shouldn't be possible.

[MikeTO]

11 hours ago, philipt18 said:

Either way, Publisher should allow groups to be based on the whole document instead of sections. They should limit the usage like that. The output, like above, shouldn't be possible.

I believe it should be possible which is why InDesign offers the feature. An index that states "Apples 133-135, 136" means that Apples is described on pages 133-135 and in a separate topic on page 136. There is value to the reader in knowing that and not grouping every reference together. But both approaches should be possible.