J
Jo
I posted about this before but I now have more questions so I'll start with a
fresh post. I'm trying to create a single index for multiple documents. I'm
trying to *avoid* creating a Master Document because I have heard such horror
stories about them. But it occurred to me that I might wind up creating one
without intending to!! So here's the situation and my questions...
SITUATION: I have a bunch of Word documents which are chapters in a book.
Each chapter document currently has its own index. I've been asked to create
a separate "umbrella" index document that will hold a single index for all of
these documents. I've also been asked to keep track of which chapter each
occurrence of a word comes from, so that "aardvark" will show as (for
example) "Ch1-pg4" in the central index. So simply combining all of the
chapters into one large document isn't really an option.
MY FIRST QUESTION: One option I thought of exploring is to simply copy the
existing individual indexes into a separate document and then see if I can
play with them there. So I tried it and found that if I copy a chapter's
index into another document, the Index field does indeed pull in the index
information from the source document. But does that mean I'm now working with
a "Master Document" that could cause me problems?? From what I can understand
about MDs, which pull in information from other documents, this might mean
I'm inadvertently creating a MD and will run into the same problems as if I
was deliberately trying to create one. Can anyone definitely confirm or deny
if this would be the case? I'm terrified that I'm going to unintentionally
create a MD and really have a nightmare of problems, especially if I don't
even realise I'm doing that!
MY SECOND QUESTION: Regardless of where the index is (in the source document
or in a separate document), is there a way to take the results of an Index
field (i.e., the Index itself) and create a text version of it instead of it
being a field? In other words, this would be something like converting
formulas to values in Excel, where instead of copying the formula of "2+3" it
would copy the end value of "5". In the central index, instead of copying the
field itself {INDEX} it would copy the contents of the index (as in
"Aardvark.....4" etc.). Does that make sense? If I can do this, it might
solve a lot of problems, since I could just create a macro to extract the
text index and then massage it into the format I want.
MY THIRD/LAST QUESTION: Is there a way to go through a document (e.g., using
a macro) and extract a list of all the words that have {XE} fields attached
to them? I haven't tried this but I'm thinking another option might be to
collect all the words that the previous author has already marked with XE
fields (which are collected into the Index field at the end of the document),
and then compile them into a concordance table and create my own separate
indexes for each chapter. In other words, start with my own indexes where I
might be able to control the output more (?) instead of the existing ones.
I guess I'm just trying to figure out the best way to do this and I'm
looking for some advice and suggestions. These documents (and therefore the
final index) are likely to be changed before the finals are ready for
publication, so I need to find a way to create this "umbrella" index so that
it doesn't take days of work each time a change is made and so that it
doesn't create nightmares when changes are applied.
Thanks very much for any help with this!!
Jo
fresh post. I'm trying to create a single index for multiple documents. I'm
trying to *avoid* creating a Master Document because I have heard such horror
stories about them. But it occurred to me that I might wind up creating one
without intending to!! So here's the situation and my questions...
SITUATION: I have a bunch of Word documents which are chapters in a book.
Each chapter document currently has its own index. I've been asked to create
a separate "umbrella" index document that will hold a single index for all of
these documents. I've also been asked to keep track of which chapter each
occurrence of a word comes from, so that "aardvark" will show as (for
example) "Ch1-pg4" in the central index. So simply combining all of the
chapters into one large document isn't really an option.
MY FIRST QUESTION: One option I thought of exploring is to simply copy the
existing individual indexes into a separate document and then see if I can
play with them there. So I tried it and found that if I copy a chapter's
index into another document, the Index field does indeed pull in the index
information from the source document. But does that mean I'm now working with
a "Master Document" that could cause me problems?? From what I can understand
about MDs, which pull in information from other documents, this might mean
I'm inadvertently creating a MD and will run into the same problems as if I
was deliberately trying to create one. Can anyone definitely confirm or deny
if this would be the case? I'm terrified that I'm going to unintentionally
create a MD and really have a nightmare of problems, especially if I don't
even realise I'm doing that!
MY SECOND QUESTION: Regardless of where the index is (in the source document
or in a separate document), is there a way to take the results of an Index
field (i.e., the Index itself) and create a text version of it instead of it
being a field? In other words, this would be something like converting
formulas to values in Excel, where instead of copying the formula of "2+3" it
would copy the end value of "5". In the central index, instead of copying the
field itself {INDEX} it would copy the contents of the index (as in
"Aardvark.....4" etc.). Does that make sense? If I can do this, it might
solve a lot of problems, since I could just create a macro to extract the
text index and then massage it into the format I want.
MY THIRD/LAST QUESTION: Is there a way to go through a document (e.g., using
a macro) and extract a list of all the words that have {XE} fields attached
to them? I haven't tried this but I'm thinking another option might be to
collect all the words that the previous author has already marked with XE
fields (which are collected into the Index field at the end of the document),
and then compile them into a concordance table and create my own separate
indexes for each chapter. In other words, start with my own indexes where I
might be able to control the output more (?) instead of the existing ones.
I guess I'm just trying to figure out the best way to do this and I'm
looking for some advice and suggestions. These documents (and therefore the
final index) are likely to be changed before the finals are ready for
publication, so I need to find a way to create this "umbrella" index so that
it doesn't take days of work each time a change is made and so that it
doesn't create nightmares when changes are applied.
Thanks very much for any help with this!!
Jo
