Import index by third party?

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

I'm working on an update to a textbook of the usual cinderblock size and heft. A late step will be, of course, to generate an index. Exactly how and what balance between proper concept indexing and keyword indexing isn't determined yet, but it's going to be more or less the author's task (both as SME and as in "I don't wanna do it"). But in looking at the process to offload this on the non-ID, non-InCopy, typical-Word-user author... I can't seem to find it. Everything revolves around entering the indexing info in InDesign — which as author/editor, is how I've always done it.

Isn't there a process to import a plain text topic list? Other than vague handwaving about "go find the INDD file with the list," are there any specific guidelines about how to structure such file for hierarchical entries, see-alsos, and the like? Or am I imagining that this alternative approach even exists?

Do I have to import a Word file to a simple InDesign file in order to do this? Or... what?

(The Adobe help page makes no mention of anything but importing an INDD file.... which is mildly embarrassing in light of certain conversations.)

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

A few tools from Peter - @Peter Kahrel 

https://creativepro.com/files/kahrel/indesign/lists_indexes.html

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Okay, so it's not just me. ID's indexing feature is... all but useless.

Crikey, I did a book 25 years ago in FrameMaker that had fiendishly complex multiple TOCs and indexes, and didn't have to resort to a single workaround, script, hack or fix. Even Word doesn't do it badly.

I'll have to figure out how to coordinate the task with the author. Yay.

[Laubender]

Hi @James Gifford—NitroPress ,

have a look at WordsFlow Pro.

Did not check lately if features were added recently that could help you (and your author) :

http://emsoftware.com/category/news/wordsflow/

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Expert )

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

A possible solution, but this is a one-time update (any future one would be 4-5 years out) and while the last edition was done in InDesign, I am working from very, very messy, almost wholly unformatted Word files. I am not sure the back-and-forth of WordFlow would be successful.

I just thought ID had a better "wholesale" index method than it apparently does.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

One way or the other - you can shift the work completely on the author. 

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Not really. If the index has to get into an existing ID layout, and they don't ID/IC and barely Word... an imported index list would only be a start, and ID doesn't seem to do that quite the way I thought it did. All context indexing will have to be done in ID, at direction of the author.

Unless I've missed something here. Word lists and automation will only do some fairly trivial end of the job.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

You can "convince" author to either (A) prepare list of words / phrases, (B) index directly in WORD - that should import - or ask author to (C) mark word / phrases with one or more CharStyles. 

(A) and (C) can be handled easily with scripts.

(B) depends on the author's familiarity with WORD.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

There's just not a good solution here, given the pieces to work with and the need for a first-rate academic result. No variation of creating a word list and having automation apply it gets any significant part of the job done and would create clutter that needs to be edited away. The need for contextual indexing, requiring advanced wetware judgment, is much more significant.

Author is basic Word hack; not even sure if I can get them to use Word's indexing consistently/successfully to a point where the resulting file would save me any time.

Discovering InDesign's steam-powered indexing system gives me insight into the folks who come here to post rants about crappy features — and this isn't even a case of where the user is misunderstanding or misusing the feature. It's so primitive on the development/implementation end (the actual indexing part) that I wonder how any non-SME designer can make use of it. (But this and other discoveries do answer some questions about why so many otherwise high-quality books have indifferent keyword indexes.)

I can't see any solution but for the author to highlight index terms on a final PDF, and for me to use ID's ditch-digging tool to implement them. (And that's possible only because I do have some grasp of the textbook's field.)

And in pursuit of that, I discover it's not just me, but that you can no longer install both Acrobat Reader and Acrobat DC on the same system, so I will have to find some way to validate and document the highlighting process for the author; I have no spare system on which I can uninstall DC.

I suppose ID will never grow all the mature long-document features of FrameMaker, but I kinda sorta have to wonder why.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

How about exporting each page as a JPEG with clickable / selectable words / phrases - as areas - so someone / author can assign Index Topic? 

As it would be though a website - more than one person can do this at the same time - and it could be done on a tablet. 

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Not quite sure I follow the technique, here, but it still doesn't bridge the gap between one person indicating the the index terms and some poor sap having to enter them using ID's interface. Again, it's not always just a word, but a concept/context issue; the indexed phrase might be "murder in the red barn" while the index entry is "Waits, Tom / references to violence."

I'm just perplexed at how slow and difficult ID's feature makes the task, on a par with text entry by typing in alt codes. And the lack of any good third-party import, for a task that is often likely to be beyond the scope of the actual designer... okay, it is what it is.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

Each page of the INDD doc would be exported as a JPEG and each word mapped as a selectable Rectangle - highlight-able. 

After selecting word - or a few consecutive words - poor sap would have to select from the list of predefined Index Topics - or be allowed to add new ones. 

Everything would be logged into a database - and then automatically "recreated" in the InDesign.

So, overall, it would be like building index directly in WORD - or adding comments in a PDF. 

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

Or "the poor sap" could use a virtual highlighter and either draw a line or rectangle over the JPEG - and then coordinates of the markings would be used to find corresponding texts in the InDesign.

[Pickory]

Hi, 

For a "first-rate academic result" you should use an Indexer. I know a few.  Some of the tool that they use are here:

https://www.kerntiff.co.uk/products-4-indesign/indexutilities

The scripts take quite a bit of learning.

1, create the index with page numbers.

2, format the index for the import process.

3, import the index. This creates temporary text frames on each page. The temp frames contain the index markers.

4, move the markers to the correct place on the page.

5, remove the temp frames.

6, generate your InDesign index.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@Pickory

Have you read whole thread? 

[Pickory]

Yes

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@Pickory

How your solution is easier than selecting words / phrases in text that should be indexed? 

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@Pickory

I've re-checked your website and CINDEX description.

So your solution would involve: 

1) reading manuscript and manually re-writing all the index topics - and page numbers, 

2) importing this to InDesign, 

3) again - manually - repositioning all frames over corresponding texts? 

Am I missing something? 

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

The solution turns out to be none of the above. 😛

I ass/u/med the author would want to do the indexing, as author, user of the textbook and general SME. I was wrong. He had the last few editions indexed by a third party and I can just absorb the task into my workflow, removing all the technical hurdles of trying to coordinate the effort.

But all more complex collaborative ideas noted for future projects, and thanks.

[AlanGilbertson]

That makes complete sense. As I was reading down the thread, I kept thinking "Hire a proper indexer. It's a profession."

On the other hand, and possibly useful for the future, the very first plug-in in InDesign history was Sonar Bookends' InDex Pro, which is still actively developed and much used.

Among other capabilities, it can scan the InDesign document and produce a plaintext list of words and/or phrases that an author can easily edit to add/remove entries. It can then generate an index in its own story with designated paragraph and character styles, and can even take a set of InDesign documents, as in a multi-volume or multi-chapter work, and create a master index with volume (or chapter) and page numbers, nested entries, etc. It understands proximity: how closely do two words or phrases appear? It understands page ranges. (I'm only sketching the barest suface-level features. There is a lot more.) Having used it successfully on multi-volume publications, in just the kind of situation where the last thing anyone needed was for the authors to mess with the manuscript, I can attest to its usefulness!

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Plug-in noted, and thanks.

This project isn't simple or narrowly defined, and almost every solution, while a good fit for some efforts, had a catch for this one.

The arguments against a third-party indexer are that this is a textbook for a very narrow, upper-division course, and the author is one of a relatively small genuine SMEs. A third party, even an experienced one, is not likely to have a good grasp of the topic for contextual indexing, and a generic, keyword-driven index would not be up to par (and can be generated in many ways not involving the time and expense of a third party).

I also am a professional indexer, among other things; I am primarily a writer, editor and publisher, with all this InDesign-based stuff a downstream set of skills. So simply having the task devolve to me, with author review, puts it in the right hands and without the need to find a way to coordinate efforts with a typical academic who uses Word like a typewriter. 🙂

As for tools and such, I don't do indexes of this scale very often; most authors can do a decent first pass and I can do a general index of almost any normal book in a few hours. But an unskilled expert/user out there and ID's rather steam-powered indexing feature, with effectively no shortcuts or bulk approach... that was going to be weeks of Excedrin Headaches™ and I am glad to have found a way past it. The plug-in would be more useful and cost-effective if I did more indexing, but as some good number of books go exclusively to e-book these days, indexes just ain't what they used to be.