On Sat, 30 May 2009 08:29:24 +1000 Jon <[email protected]> wrote:
> I think we have to define what we mean by 'real life' here... Most > textbooks and other serious non-fiction books from major publishers > which have indexes at all, have them created from scratch by a human > with a PC, writing down entries in page number order and then sorting > them into alphabetical order. (I'm not talking about in-house > computer manuals here.) Unfortunately, due to one of the archaic > traditions which infest publishing, the author usually has the > financial responsibility to provide an index. Some do it themselves: > some do a very good job; some don't. But -- just as a professional > artist is called in to design the cover -- many authors will > recognise their limitations and call in a professional indexer. My only experience is with legal textbooks, my own and those of colleagues. You are right about the author usually having responsibility. There usually isn't enough money in the project to afford an external indexer. If there is enough, then it is possible to push the responsibility onto the publisher. Not a happy situation. For legal textbooks, the problem is somewhat alleviated by indexing to paragraph numbers. Using awful LaTeX macros, my own book is indexed in this way. It also allows the index to be carried consistently between editions - important for legal books. > > There aren't a lot of us -- maybe 50 in Australia doing more than an > occasional index. But if you want to get an idea of what we actually > do, check out www.anzsi.org. And if anyone's seriously interested in > looking at the kind of software we need and use, there are Windows > demo versions available from I know what professional indexers do. I have their services on some projects (large, expensive looseleaf specialist publications), and I wish like hell that I had them available on everything! It's just not possible on my limited budget, so I make do. I have noticed that it's not a perfect world :-). Interesting and challenging problem. Cheers, Alan > > http://www.sky-software.com > > and > > http://www.indexres.com > > Jon. > > > > Alan L Tyree wrote: > > > >> > >> This is really just the LaTeX embedded indexing. One of Jon's > >> earlier posts explained that this is not what "real" indexers do. > >> > >> I both agree and disagree with Jon. Real indexers do not use > >> embedded systems. Unfortunately, in real life, the "real" indexer > >> is the author, and most authors use embedded indexing. It is one > >> of the reasons why most indexes are so bad. Embedded indexing is > >> very hard to keep consistent, and most authors know SFA about > >> indexing. > >> > >> I have fooled around a bit with "semi-automatic" indexing. Instead > >> of trying to do it all automatically, start out with index entries > >> that seem suitable for your book (in other words, steal an index > >> from a similar book). Apply these entries through some form of > >> automatic indexing. > >> > >> The main objection to this is that it is just indexing words. This > >> is true. But, if you look at most "real" indexes, probably 90% of > >> the the entries _are_ indexing words. > >> > >> Alan > > -- > SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ > Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html > -- Alan L Tyree http://www2.austlii.edu.au/~alan Tel: 04 2748 6206 Fax: +61 2 4782 7092 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
