TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
RE: Frame Maker deletes my changes when updating the index
Subject:RE: Frame Maker deletes my changes when updating the index From:"Joe Malin" <jmalin -at- tuvox -dot- com> To:"Yoann Le Bleis" <yoannlebleis -at- gmail -dot- com> Date:Fri, 4 Aug 2006 17:04:16 -0700
I stand corrected on (continued). It *is* used in Chicago, but only to
continue sub or sub-sub-entries to another column. For a sufficiently
large index, you would have to use this. I'm not sure how you'd do it,
and you might find it faster to use an indexing add-in.
When you create "See" and "see also" entries as index entries in an
index marker and then convert to PDF, you get a link for them. They
don't link to another place in the index; they link to the book itself.
I am not sure what you mean by <$nopage> markers as a way to avoid
delete-all; <$nopage> just prevents a page number appearing next to the
entry. If you don't put it in, instead of getting
cheese
stinking. See Limburger
Limburger, 29
you get
cheese
stinking. See Limburger, 29
Limburger, 29
The latter is incorrect style and also confusing.
I know one reason why you would point an index entry to the start of a
topic. If you plan to convert your FM document to HTML, the result will
most likely have one HTML page per *chapter*. Putting a page number in
the HTML index would make no sense. The best you can do is convert the
page number into a link to the closest section.
Linking to the page containing the information is the best way. Don't
make your reader hunt through an entire section for one piece of
information. If you really want the reader to discover information at
the section level, make sure you put together good section titles that
appear in the TOC.
Use page ranges to communicate that the relevant information spans
multiple pages. That is
cheese, 29-34
will alert me to look at all those pages, while
cheese, 29
may lead me to skip over pages 30-34. Beware, though; doing page ranges
in FM is not simple.
Your English is quite good, so don't apologize. "Stinking-cheese eater"
is a bit vague, though. A "stinking cheese-eater" (that is, someone we
dislike who eats cheese) could be from The Netherlands or France or even
Switzerland. A "stinking-cheese eater" (that is, someone who eats cheese
that smells bad) is most likely to be from France but could also be from
Italy (where they eat a form of cheese that contains live maggots). My
own opinion is that most stinking cheese is good!
Joe
TuVox, Inc.
19050 Pruneridge Avenue Suite 150, Cupertino, CA 95014-0715
Joe Malin
Technical Writer
(408)625.1623
jmalin -at- tuvox -dot- com
www.tuvox.com
The views expressed in this document are those of the sender, and do not
necessarily reflect those of TuVox, Inc.
________________________________
From: Yoann Le Bleis [mailto:yoannlebleis -at- gmail -dot- com]
Sent: Friday, August 04, 2006 3:24 AM
To: Joe Malin
Cc: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Re: Frame Maker deletes my changes when updating the index
Hi,
"continued" at top of columns: I think it is a way to facilitate the
user's browsing in the index, advising him that the column he's starting
to read is the continuation of the previous one. Moreover I saw them in
the Chicago Manual of Style index. You say it is not a standard indexing
style...Could you explain a bit more?
See / See also ref. : I thought they were links to create inside the
index, without any marker to put in the text. Are the <$nopage> markers
just a way to avoid the delete-all feature when regenerating the index?
I have a last question - perhaps it's obvious for you, but I am very new
to indexing : do you have good arguments to convince my boss the page
ranges are needed, in place of just putting a marker at the beginning of
the topic, whatever its length?
Thank you, and sorry for my English: I'm a stinking-cheese eater!
WebWorks ePublisher Pro for Word features support for every major Help
format plus PDF, HTML and more. Flexible, precise, and efficient content
delivery. Try it today! http://www.webworks.com/techwr-l
