Making an index in InDesign – some questions, need help!

Jimmy Jay

Tagged: indexing

This topic has 12 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated 9 years, 2 months ago by Jimmy Jay.

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- January 25, 2015 at 3:19 pm #72900
  
  Jimmy Jay
  Member
  
  Hi all. Doing an index in InDesign. Had a few questions I could not find the answers to by googling.
  
  1. I have made all my index entries, and when they show up in the index I generate, I want them to have ranges. e.g. I have certain entries with pgs like 6, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 22 – I want this to show up as 6, 12-17, 22. What do I do so InDesign compresses all sequential page entries into ranges automatically?
  
  2. Is there any way to select multiple entries at once in the index window? Like selecting multiple cells in excel. Ctrl-click or shift-click, etc.
  
  3. What’s the shortcut to quickly delete an entry? Just select the entry and tap a key to delete.
  
  Thanks!!!!!
- January 26, 2015 at 2:27 pm #72923
  
  Jimmy Jay
  Member
  
  Does nobody have any input? Can’t find these answers anywhere on the internet, figured this would be the place to come. Anyone out there?
  - January 26, 2015 at 3:07 pm #72925
    
    David Blatner
    Keymaster
    
    Jimmy, here’s some ideas:
    https://creativepro.com/indexing-a-range-rather-than-individual-pages.php
    https://creativepro.com/alternatives-indesign-indexing.php
  - January 26, 2015 at 6:02 pm #72929
    
    Jimmy Jay
    Member
    
    Thanks. I have seen both those pages and neither really help with any of my questions. #2 and 3 aren’t really as important now, but I really need a way to make page ranges in InDesign. I’m not going back to every entry and messing around with InDesign’s range crap (that article was written 6 years ago, I’m assuming they’ve fixed that bug by now). I need the button or command that detects all contiguous page number entries and compresses them to a simple “29-34” in the generated index. InDesign *has* to be able to do this – what’s the secret?
- January 26, 2015 at 7:52 pm #72930
  
  David Blatner
  Keymaster
  
  Jimmy, the Range pop-up menu isn’t a bug. That’s the way Indexing works. If you can’t be bothered to make the index correctly in the first place, then don’t blame the tool.
  
  That said, I believe I have seen a script that finds sequential numbers and puts a hyphen inbetween. I’ll ask around.
  - January 27, 2015 at 9:52 am #72941
    
    Jimmy Jay
    Member
    
    Thanks, that’d be a lifesaver. It just baffles me that the only way that ID deals with ranges is in a specific menu – when you’re indexing a book there’s a ton of Add All going on and that means dozens of page numbers on hundreds of entries, I’m shocked that ID expects us to go back and manually tweak the ranges (especially when there’s no way to select multiple entries, another serious flaw). Playing around with the range menu is more work than just adding the hyphens manually!
- January 27, 2015 at 10:49 am #72944
  
  Kenneth Darby
  Member
  
  Oleh Melnyk has a javascript called “detect digit range.jsx” which I believe will do what you are looking for.
  
  This script detect and set digit ranges:
  – searches for “1, 3, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11, 12, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20” and turn it to “1, 3, 5, 6, 8, 10-12, 15, 16, 18-20”
  
  I don’t know where I came by it. A Google search turns up a few social media sites that I believe you can contact him from. I have his email address but I don’t have his permission to give it out. Give social media a try first.
- January 27, 2015 at 10:57 am #72946
  
  Kenneth Darby
  Member
  
  I believe that Oleh Melnyk is from Lviv, Ukraine (After suggesting social media I took a look and the name is more popular than I thought.
- January 27, 2015 at 11:13 am #72947
  
  David Blatner
  Keymaster
  
  Here is another option:
  https://www.kahrel.plus.com/indesign/index_update.html
  
  (Jimmy: ID doesn’t expect people to go back and manually tweak all the ranges; it expects that the ranges be set when you first index the document. You’re right that indexing is a huge pain and I wish it were easier!)
- January 28, 2015 at 3:27 am #72966
  
  Eugene Tyson
  Member
  
  Any time I’ve had to index a book – 32 publications, ranging from 100pages to 3,200 pages, we’ve hired a professional indexer who works with our supplied PDFs to index the publications.
  
  Indexing a book is a 2 person job, needs the editor and the indexed on hand to make the decisions.
  
  I know software can make it easier. But it’s tough job to get the index right.
  
  And you’re actually talking with a publisher, David Blatner, who didn’t win the award himself, but for one of his publications, https://creativepro.com/real-world-indesign-cs4-wins-best-index-award.php
  
  I’d take heed in what David is saying here.
  
  :)
- January 31, 2015 at 3:01 pm #73030
  
  Jimmy Jay
  Member
  
  Thanks for all the input. That script looks like it should work, will report back with results.
  
  One more question that I cannot find an answer to – how do I take an Index and duplicate/import it to another InDesign document? e.g. I have all my entries in the Index window on one document, I want all those entries to show up in the index window in another document.
  - January 31, 2015 at 3:42 pm #73031
    
    Jimmy Jay
    Member
    
    Hmm, I read up on that script you posted Mr. Blatner – it looks like a great option and exactly what I need to index this book. When I tried to run it in InDesign (CC 9.0), I got the following error: https://imgur.com/PmCB8mI
  - January 31, 2015 at 5:17 pm #73032
    
    Jimmy Jay
    Member
    
    Belay that – realized I had not selected the text frame, d’oh. Worked like a charm. Thanks a million Mr. Blatner.
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