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Indexes

When a word, or group of words, is selected and added to the index, a hidden marker is inserted into the text at the start of the selection, which references a subject key and an optional qualifier (or second level index).

The subject key is often the same as the selected text, but can be different (it can be any text up to 59 characters long). The qualifier can be up to 119 characters long. If the text containing the index marker is Dragged & Dropped or Cut & Copied elsewhere, the index information will be copied too, even to other documents.

To add a word or phrase to the index

1 Select the word or phrase to be indexed.

2 Click Adjust on the Index button to add the selection directly to the index. or

2 Click Select on the Index button or choose Add to index... from the Misc menu (F6) to open the Add to index dialogue.

Where you can:

Alternatively the word or phrase can be 'found' from the dialogue, using the Find button:

  1. Click Select on the Index button or choose Add to index... from the Misc menu (F6) without making a selection.
  2. Type the text to be found into the Subject writable icon.
  3. Click Find (use Adjust to keep the dialogue on the screen).
  4. Click Add to add the entry to the index (use Adjust to keep the dialogue on the screen).
  5. Click Find next to find the next occurrence.

The ? and @ form of wild cards used in the Find dialogue may be used if required. If no match is found by the end of the document, a dialogue appears asking whether the search should be continued from the start of the document.

To add a qualifier to the index

If you wanted to add the heading of this section to the index in the form:

  1. Select the text 'To add a qualifier to the index'.
  2. Click Select on the Index button.
    The Add to index dialogue will appear.

  3. Click Select in the word 'the' and drag down into the Qualifier writable icon. all the text from the beginning of the writable icon to the word containing the caret will move.
  4. Edit to remove the word 'the' and click Add.

To update an index entry

  1. Select the index entry you want to update.
  2. Click Adjust on the Index button or choose Update index... from the Misc menu,
    or
1 Click Adjust on the Index button or choose Update index... from the Misc menu without making a selection. The following dialogue will appear:

2 Use the pop-up to select the index entry to be updated, or

2 Use the arrow pointers to select the next, or previous, entry.
The Update index dialogue will appear.

If several updates are to be made, press Update with Adjust, select the next entry to be updated with the Find index entry pop-up, and so on.

Drag and Drop editing in index dialogues

As you can't select text in writable icons, to ease the process of setting up qualifiers, Drag and Drop operations can be performed between the writable fields in the dialogue.

To create an entry in the form 'xx see yy'

Sometime you want to index a word that does not appear in the document referring to a word that does i.e.

  1. Make sure that the word after 'see' has already been indexed.
  2. Click in the document (not in a picture or end of paragraph).
  3. Click Select on the Index button or choose Add to index... from the Misc menu (F6).
  4. Type the name of the index word in the Subject writable icon.
  5. Choose the newly created reference word from the See pop-up menu.

  6. Click Add to add the entry to the index (Use Adjust to keep the dialogue on the screen).
    Alternatively if the 'see' word has not been indexed you can type it in the subject writable icon, search for it, add it with Adjust, then edit subject and choose the newly created index word.

To view the index entries

Generating
an Index

  1. Choose Index from the Save menu.
  2. Drag the index file from the save box into the originating document at the caret position or onto a file created from a EasiWriter stationery pad containing chapter and section styles specially set up to assist in formatting an Index.

(The file IndexPad (in the application directory) contains such styles, and an example of these styles is shown in the index to this document). EasiWriter will sort the entries alphabetically, locating the page number for each reference, removing duplicate entries which occur on the same page, and format the output.

Any entries beginning with a digit are sorted into a group headed 'Numerics', and entries starting with the non-alphabetic, non-numeric characters are sorted into a group headed 'Symbols'. The exception is entries starting with delimiters, e.g. single and double quotes, which are sorted as if the delimiters were not present.

To format the index, it is a good idea to structure it into sections, one for each initial letter, Adjust click on the last paragraph for that letter to extend the selection and then make it into a Section. If the IndexPad is used, this should be done choosing 'Index Section' from the menu obtained by clicking Menu over the Section button in the button bar. Finally, if references to other index entries have been used, occurrences of the words 'see', 'see also' and 'and' can be italicised.

Localisation

The text, i.e. 'see', used in index generation can be changed by editing the Messages file see Advanced options.


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