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notannhavoc
Inspiring
September 12, 2023
Question

Index - reference page and paragraph number

  • September 12, 2023
  • 2 replies
  • 875 views

Hoping that someone can   help me. I have  several documents that all have numbered paaragraphs. I'm creatign an index so would like the index reference to not only show the page but also the paragraph. I see there is an option for  custom cross refeernce - but I don't know how to  add the  paragraph number. And in this index I only want to reference the first occurrence of  the item.  Any scripts would be most useful and appreciated.- so for example the bolded word Cape North needs to be indexed - it is on page2-11 and paragraph number 11, South Point - page 2-11, para #8.  and so on. In fact , all the bolded words need to be indexed. It seems like a script  should be possible for this.

 

    2 replies

    Peter Kahrel
    Community Expert
    Peter KahrelCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    September 13, 2023

    InDesign's index supports just one type of locator: the page number. It's possible to script different types of locator, such as paragraph number, but that's a drastic script. It basically takes over the generation of the index. Not exactly trivial.

      FRIdNGE
      FRIdNGE
      September 14, 2023

      Hi Peter,

       

      Sure it's not exactly trivial!

       

      Such infos could be finally a little hard to read at the end [ Script for clients ] but they surely give at the end a good [better] view of the localization of the Index entries to readers.

       

       

       

       

       

      Samples:

       

      "aspidis" is found 4 times:

      • page "2", twice in the main flow first column "a" and inside 2 auto-num paras ("#1" and "#4"), and the main flow third colum "c" (not inside an auto-num para)

      • page "3", in the main flow first column "a" and inside an auto-num para (#8)

       

      "nobiscut" is found 3 times, in the page "3":

      • in the main flow second column "b" and inside an auto-num para ("#7"), and the main flow third colum "c" (not inside an auto-num para)

      • in the second footnote ("f2")

       

      (^/)  The Jedi

      [paid Script]

        Peter Kahrel
        Community Expert
        Peter KahrelCommunity Expert
        Community Expert
        September 14, 2023

        Nice work, Michel!

        Barb Binder
        Community Expert
        Barb BinderCommunity Expert
        Community Expert
        September 13, 2023

        A cross reference in the index is used to refer someone to synonyms in an index.

         

        For example, line screen and screen ruling mean the same thing and if the author uses the words line screen but knows the reader might look up screen ruling, we use an index cross-reference to send the reader from screen ruling over to line screen to get the page number. In short, that won't work for you. I'm not aware of any way to add a paragraph number to an index. 

         

        Plug-ins and scripting can extend the feature set of InDesign, so there may be a solution, but I'm fairly confident it is not within the InDesign feature set.

         

        ~Barb

        ~Barb at Rocky Mountain Training
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