How to create a Structured Glossary

[Moxamoll]

I'm stumped.  I can't figure out how to go from having a EDD marker entry for a glossary:     

to actually having a Glossary?  I can tag terms with the Glossary marker and ask FM9 to generate a list of Glossary markers.  But how do I get it to only display one listing per term (i.e. "Name" page 2, 6, 24 & 32 rather than "Name" page 2, "Name" page 6, "Name" page 24, etc.?)  And how do I add the definitions for the terms?

I can't figure out the process of building a Glossary at all, so I'd really appreciate some guidance!

[Van Kurtz]

I do not use markers to create a glossary. My glossary is simply a sequence of Term element, followed by a Definition element, followed by a Term element, followed by a Definition element, etc, ad infinitum. The basic requirement in the structure is that a Definition element must always follow a Term element, that is, they are paired, and there can be any number of Term-Definition pairs. The glossary is in its own file at the end of the book. There are no page numbers to where the terms are used.

That being said, what are you trying to do? Where are the definitions stored? How are you using the markers? In other words, can you explain how or why you want to use markers to generate a glossary in more detail.

Van

[Moxamoll]

The glossary structure that we had (and that I'm trying to rebuild in Structured FM9) was a document at the end, that was

Term

Definition

Term

Definition

Term

etc.

And there were links throughout the book, where you could click on the term and it would open the glossary to the appropriate spot.  For example, I could click on Term 1 in chapter 1, chapter 4 and chapter 6 and they would all take me to the one Term 1 and definition in the Glossary.

However, I'm wondering now, what are the capabilities of the Glossary Marker type that can be built into the document?  Does it simply generate a list of the marked text and nothing more?  If so, then the method you describe Van would definitely be better.  It seems odd to me that the possibilities of the Glossary Marker aren't more robust (even if I can't figure them out) in being a tool to somewhat automate the construction of the structure above.  (If it's just a list, then it's really an index, not a glossary, right?)

To answer your question, I was trying to use Glossary Markers because the name would imply that they are the best practice way to implement a glossary!

[Van Kurtz]

Moxamoll,

From Johannes' information about glossary markers, it appears that using them for what you want to do will not work.

Suppose you create your glossary as you and I both indicate, that is elements in the sequence: Term, Definition, Term, Definition, etc

Give your Term element an attribute of type unique ID. In your text, simply create cross-references to Term elements. The cross-reference would display the content of a Term element, namely the term itself. The only problem I see with this is formatting, such as capitalization, e.g., whether the term-link is at the beginning of the sentence or in the middle. But there may be ways around that.

An alternative is to create a hyperlink to a Term element. In this case, you are free to format or reword the text that appears in the link. I have never created hyperlinks in a structured document, so can offer no help here.

Van

[Moxamoll]

Thanks gentlemen!  It seems that the problem was with my understanding of the purpose of the tool, not with how to use it.

I will build the Glossary as another chapter and use the cross-ref option.

I appreciate your help!

[JohannesKrueger]

A view at this help topic for Robohelp suggests that the intended use of FM's glossary markers is to prepare a glossary to be published in Robohelp.

Moxamoll wrote:

But how do I get it to only display one listing per term

Creating an index of markers rather than a list will do this, but this would result in more of, well, an index ...

I don't know of any built-in featue in FM that would allow to auto-generate a glossary. As you're using a structure application, it might be feasible to save as XML and generate a glossary outside FM.

Johannes