[xml-h] Belated introduction: Indexing
Bob DuCharme
bobdc at snee.com
Tue Feb 11 21:17:36 GMT 2003
Here's the fairly DocBook-Emacs-geek approach that I've used to ease the
creation of an XML-based index for my last few books:
First, I go through a printout of a draft and mark all the places where I
want index entries to point.
Then, I use some Emacs macros I've written (see "Adding Index Entries"
in http://www.snee.com/bob/sgmlfree/emcspsgm.html#docbook) to add the
appropriate DocBook indexing tags. I highlight the phrase to add as an
index entry and press ^Cx, and the phrase gets copied in between the
inserted index tags. If it's a first level entry, I'm done; if not, I then
press ^Cy and enter the second-level entry.
>What we need is a user-friendly app that shows me the markup I need to
see and hides the >markup I dont.
Here's a somewhat half-assed approach that has worked fine for me:
underneath "Adding Index Entries" described above is some .emacs code to
reset the color of DocBook index tags and their contents. When I'm working
on indexing, I set them to a color that stands out more; when I'm not, I
set them to a color that doesn't.
Ideas for more interesting solutions have popped into my head when doing
this, but anyone who happens to be working on a book index probably doesn't
have a lot of spare time in their life that month. (Funny how many
subscribers to this list are published authors!)
P.S. Anyone who's ever done an index should buy Al Franken's "Rush Limbaugh
is a Big Fat Idiot" just for the index. It has nothing to do with the
actual contents of the book, but is a hilarious parody of an index.
Bob DuCharme www.snee.com/bob <bob@
snee.com> "The elements be kind to thee, and make thy
spirits all of comfort!" Anthony and Cleopatra, III ii
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