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Inspiring
February 8, 2021
Question

Advanced Index - indexing images, as well as according to Last-Name first, First-Name last?

  • February 8, 2021
  • 1 reply
  • 452 views

Hey, folks. My organization is doing up a national directory for industry-specific professionals, which includes image-based ads (.PDF format, dunno if that matters). This includes an index, listed in last-name first, first name last order. This was previously done manually, which is a major pain in the butt as it's a 250+ page document, and when items will always be shifting around, I'd prefer to automate the process.

 

So, if John Smith has his listing on page 50 and his full page ad on page 48, but his Index listing has him as "Smith, John", are InDesign's built-in indexing tools smart enough to handle it if I was to do something like meta-tag the objects (e.g.: the appropriate text frame and graphic frame) with the words "Smith, John", and then build the index from meta-tags, or do I need a separate plugin for that?

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1 reply

Inspiring
February 8, 2021

Addendum, I'm looking into IndexMatic2 (I still need the IT department to allow me to install the script on my machine...probably not a bad idea since the weakest security link is always your own people), but as far as I can tell, it doesn't have the ability to read images, although as a workaround, I can probably do what I'm already doing with the TOC, which is have a non-printing text box appear over the object in question.

FRIdNGE
Inspiring
February 8, 2021

If the image name about John Smith is "Smith_John.pdf", a [not-so-complex] script will be enough to collect the data from the images and include the list at its place!

 

(^/)  The Jedi

Inspiring
February 8, 2021

Tough thing about that is that we have a numerical scheme for files, using an internal docket number and order number, but we can probably metatag it.