Creating an index

[AlexBR1974 1]

Hi!

Is there a tutorial with all the steps on how to create an index in a Publisher file?

I found the Text > Index option, but it's not clear to me how to add it to the book.

Thank you.

[walt.farrell 2,085]

It's basically a two phase process:

1. Locate the terms in your text that you want to index. Position the text cursor Immediately after a term, and use the Menu Text > Index > Insert Index Mark (or default shortcut Ctrl+Alt+Shift+[ on Windows). You get to choose the term that will display in the index, and for sub-entries in the index you get to choose a parent entry. When you've inserted some index marks, you can move on to step 2.
2. Draw a Text Frame where you want the actual index, put the text cursor inside it, and use Menu Text > Index > Insert Index.

Note that there is also an Index studio panel, which you activate via Menu View > Studio > Index, which lets you adjust the index in some ways. It also includes icons for inserting index marks, and some other functions. And you may find the Menu option Text > Index > View Index Marks useful.

Also, from the Index panel, you can right-click on an index topic and get some useful functions, among them the ability to find that term elsewhere in the document and index those other occurrences.

There is information in the Publisher Help about the Index Panel, too.

There is no tutorial yet, as far as I know.

[AlexBR1974 1]

Thanks a lot. That was really helpful!

[afdojo 5]

Hey Walt,

Wow, thanks! This is really clear and helpful. The AP help for Index and Index Panel made no sense and I couldn't find a tutorial either. After reading your short "tutorial", I had my index up and running in about 10 minutes.

Best,

Doug

 

[TechWriter 0]

On 2/7/2019 at 4:05 PM, walt.farrell said:

It's basically a two phase process:

1. Locate the terms in your text that you want to index. Position the text cursor Immediately after a term, and use the Menu Text > Index > Insert Index Mark (or default shortcut Ctrl+Alt+Shift+[ on Windows). You get to choose the term that will display in the index, and for sub-entries in the index you get to choose a parent entry. When you've inserted some index marks, you can move on to step 2.
2. Draw a Text Frame where you want the actual index, put the text cursor inside it, and use Menu Text > Index > Insert Index.

Note that there is also an Index studio panel, which you activate via Menu View > Studio > Index, which lets you adjust the index in some ways. It also includes icons for inserting index marks, and some other functions. And you may find the Menu option Text > Index > View Index Marks useful.

Also, from the Index panel, you can right-click on an index topic and get some useful functions, among them the ability to find that term elsewhere in the document and index those other occurrences.

There is information in the Publisher Help about the Index Panel, too.

There is no tutorial yet, as far as I know.

Is it possible to create more than one index? Say, an author's index, a subject's index etc?

[walt.farrell 2,085]

No. Publisher allows at most one index in a document.

[Michail 167]

On 3/20/2019 at 7:12 AM, TechWriter said:

Is it possible to create more than one index? Say, an author's index, a subject's index etc?

But you can make multiple tables of contents. Maybe this way you will reach your goal.

[Roger terry 7]

Is it possible to insert an index mark once for all occurrences of the indexed word or does one have to go to each occurrence of the word and insert the mark?

[walt.farrell 2,085]

7 hours ago, Roger terry said:

Is it possible to insert an index mark once for all occurrences of the indexed word or does one have to go to each occurrence of the word and insert the mark?

Having added one, you can use the Index panel (View > Studio > Index) to find other occurrences of the term and add more index marks. Right-click on the term entry in the panel, select Find in Document, and you get a list of all occurrences of the term. Each entry in the list has a check-box to add it to the index, or not.

[Roger terry 7]

I understand but I have over 200 words to index with an average of 10 occurences each so that's at least 2,000 clicks. Is there any way to easily remove the index marks?

 

[walt.farrell 2,085]

48 minutes ago, Roger terry said:

I understand but I have over 200 words to index with an average of 10 occurences each so that's at least 2,000 clicks. Is there any way to easily remove the index marks?

 

I thought you were wanting to create index entries, not delete them? Where did the index marks  come from in the first place? You only get them when you intentionally add them.

[Roger terry 7]

But the editor changed his mind.

[walt.farrell 2,085]

21 minutes ago, Roger terry said:

But the editor changed his mind.

Then (I think) you will need to do some clicking to remove the entries the editor no longer wants, or delete the Index completely and start over.

[Roger terry 7]

Yes i understand deleting the index but will that clear the index marks?

[walt.farrell 2,085]

No. Index marks must be deleted manually, as far as I can see.

[MikeW 1,793]

Serif needs to add such items into the Find panel (like with tabs, returns, etc).

[walt.farrell 2,085]

6 minutes ago, MikeW said:

Serif needs to add such items into the Find panel (like with tabs, returns, etc).

I agree.

(I also just tried to copy an index mark and paste it into the Find panel, and that crashes Publisher on Windows. New topic created to report that.)

[Old Bruce 701]

1 hour ago, walt.farrell said:

I agree.

(I also just tried to copy an index mark and paste it into the Find panel, and that crashes Publisher on Windows. New topic created to report that.)

No crash on Mac. Pasting into the find window gives nothing being in the find section. The index mark is either not pasted or not copied.

[thetasig 9]

I'd strongly suggest using a "Concordance" file in AFPUB to mark words or phrases to be indexed. MS Word and other s/w has this feature. I think they use a spreadsheet format for the file. The advantages are clear: all you have to do is to create an external text file with all of the words (or phrases) you wish to index (two columns). Then the software will read that file into the document and automatically mark the each word in the document to be indexed. Having to do this manually word-for-word in the document is a real slap in the face. A nice feature of the Concordance file is that it has two columns: the first column lists the actual word you want to find. The second column is how you wish that word to appear in the index itself. An example is:

financial services                 Services: financial

computer services               Services: computer

computer                               Computer

services                                 Services

The second column allows for a "parent" index word "Services" (I think indenting in the index child below the parent might be optional in some cases).

Handling phrases is a key feature that should be implemented. Note, for example, that "computer services" above might be listed in three places in the index as:

Computer    5, 10, 22, 75

Services       5, 33, 52, 75

Services: computer    5, 75

The follow-on for this type of feature is a "command" to remove all index entries from the document in one fell swoop.

The clear advantage of the Concordance file is that it can be used for many different documents, especially in a situation where many documents are 'technical' or fall into a particular genre. The file can be kept, shared among coworkers, added to over time, and edited as needed to restructure the final index appearance.

[Roger terry 7]

I have no idea shat a Concordance file is. Can you tell me where I can get more information?

Thanks

[Roger terry 7]

OK I see what it is in Word but my AP text has never been in word so I guess this is not a viable solution for me.

[thetasig 9]

Yes, I'm in the same situation with regards to the text in AP. In an ideal situation, the application itself would "dump" all the text into the concordance file and then let you edit that for the personal touch. Then the application would read that file back into the document to create the index. even MS Word does not offer that "dump" feature.

It gets tricky though - phrases and parent/child (topic/sub-topic) relationships would need to be handled manually during the editing regardless.

[thetasig 9]

When I first created a two-word index, there was a single letter of the alphabet in the left-hand column followed on the next line by the indented word:

A

        Apple 10, 20, 42

...

P

        Plastic 31, 38, 52, 64

Now that I've added some 40 words, the alphabetical letters are gone and all the words are on the left with no indent:

Apple 10, 20, 42

How do I get the alphabetical letters to show up with the indented words? Also, I tried to insert a "tab" of periods (like I did in the TOC) but they don't show up when I select that paragraph feature, the "."   Honestly, not sure I want that feature, but would just like to know how it should work.

A

        Apple..............................10, 20, 42  

        Aqua...........................8, 11, 24, 51

Lastly, some words cause the page numbers to wrap around to the next line or two lines. Is there a way to indent the second and subsequent lines of page numbers so that they are not sitting on the left margin?

Apple 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24

25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42

43, 44, 45

---------->

Apple 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24,

           25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40,

           41, 42, 43, 44, 45

Many thanks.

[walt.farrell 2,085]

1 hour ago, thetasig said:

When I first created a two-word index, there was a single letter of the alphabet in the left-hand column followed on the next line by the indented word:

A

        Apple 10, 20, 42

...

P

        Plastic 31, 38, 52, 64

Now that I've added some 40 words, the alphabetical letters are gone and all the words are on the left with no indent:

Apple 10, 20, 42

How do I get the alphabetical letters to show up with the indented words?

Make sure you've selected the option to include section headingss in the Index. It's on the Index studio panel:

 

[walt.farrell 2,085]

1 hour ago, thetasig said:

Also, I tried to insert a "tab" of periods (like I did in the TOC) but they don't show up when I select that paragraph feature, the "."   Honestly, not sure I want that feature, but would just like to know how it should work.

In the Index options you can choose to use a tab as the separator.

Then, find the paragraph style that's assigned to an index entry. By default it's Index Entry 1. Find that in the Text Styles panel and double-click it to edit the style definition. Choose the Tab Stops section of the definition, and add a tab stop at the distance you want. Then, in the definition of that tab stop you can specify the separator characters.

Here I've set a tab stop at 2 inches, and specified use of . as a leader: