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RH 2020: any way to easily rebuild the index?

Contributor ,
Aug 02, 2020 Aug 02, 2020

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Have been moving chapters and topics around to better organize a book. When I checked a published PDF, the index pages are now out of order (for example, for an index term: 256, 25,190, 20, 22, 26, 80, 15,...).

 

Will I need to create a new index from scratch or is there a way to rebuild the existing index so that page numbers for each index term are reorganized and in ascending order?

 

Any suggestions appreciated.

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Community Expert ,
Aug 03, 2020 Aug 03, 2020

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The index terms are whatever you created and they are linked to topics. Moving chapters and books does nothing to the index, that is nothing to do with the TOC, topic titles and file names. You must have changed something besides just moving them around in the TOC.

 

Can you show a screenshot of where things are messed up?

 

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Contributor ,
Aug 03, 2020 Aug 03, 2020

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Screenshot for Index from published PDF attached. (If you need a different screenshot, let me know.)

 

 

Capture1.jpg

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Community Expert ,
Aug 03, 2020 Aug 03, 2020

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Hmm! I am trying to find out what dictates the order. I will get back to you as soon as I hear back.

 

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Contributor ,
Aug 03, 2020 Aug 03, 2020

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At first I thought that this out-of-order issue may be caused by the out-of-order items being part of front- or back-matter. But further investigation shows that entries in the main body of the chapters and topics are also out-of-order. What it does correspond to is topic name alphabetical order. So, I tried to change this order in an index entry, but, even when moved up or down, it reverts to alphabetical even though these are not ascending by page number. Moving doesn't stay moved into correct ascending (by page number) order.

 

screenshot of index entry COVID-19 (see also previous screenshot in posting above).

Preface is page 4 and so in ascending page order should appear first.

Capture2.jpg

If this can be reproduced, verified, it would need to be fixed so that the index is built using ascending page numbers (or atleast an option for this). What do you think?

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Community Expert ,
Aug 03, 2020 Aug 03, 2020

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To me it seems logical that the page numbers should be in order. They clearly do not but I can't think of a good reason so I have made enquiries. Until I get a reply, there's nothing more I can add.

 

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Contributor ,
Aug 03, 2020 Aug 03, 2020

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Thank you Peter.

I was just going to drop a note to Adobe RH, but will hold off, wait until you hear back from your enquiry.

Stephen

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Community Expert ,
Aug 03, 2020 Aug 03, 2020

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Have been moving chapters and topics around to better organize a book. When I checked a published PDF, the index pages are now out of order (for example, for an index term: 256, 25,190, 20, 22, 26, 80, 15,...).

 

Looking at just Addiction are you saying that originally the page numbers were correct, then you moved them around in RoboHelp's TOC and generated again, now you get what you have shown?

 

If not, please clarify?

 

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Community Expert ,
Aug 03, 2020 Aug 03, 2020

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Ignore the last question as I understand the Index page number order in the PDF is not linked to the TOC. I am still exchanging emails but my understanding if I have followed correctly is that it is based on the order of the topics linked to the keyword as set out in the Index panel.

 

Bear in mind I have gone back to check what I have been told so there could be a misunderstanding. What I have to ask is are you sure the page numbers were correct to start with and this only happened after you moved things around in the TOC. From what I understand, that should not make any difference.

 

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Contributor ,
Aug 03, 2020 Aug 03, 2020

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I upgraded this from RH 2019, and the page numbers were correct in it. While I moved a few topics, the bigger change was setting up chapters to place topics in, to better organize the readers viewing, facilitate reader navigation. The RH 2019 index worked flawlessly, but from looking at a project PDF published from RH 2019, it used topic names not page numbers. That would be an OK index option for publishing in RH 2020 (topic names where each index term appears), but does not seem to be the default in RH 2020. RH 2020 autogenerates the index with page numbers (out of ascending order for page numbers), not topic names. No matter how I add keywords to an index term in RH 2020, the UI sorts them alphabetically, so I end up with topic corresponding page numbers sorted by their topic's alphabetical order rather than sorted by ascending page numbers.

 

For example, I tried to move the keyword topic names in an entry. They move but then snap back to their alphabetical pre-moved position. So, if I moved them and they stayed moved, that would work.

 

Not sure given the underlying RH script/code how to fix this, because it over-rides any attempted solutions I have tried. For example, it would also work if there was a tick box option to display index keyword topic locations by topic name instead of page number, or, of course, if the index had an option to display the term's keywords by their topic's ascending page order.

 

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Contributor ,
Aug 03, 2020 Aug 03, 2020

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More testing. I checked, and as far as I can tell, pages are correct. Links work, take you to the correct page and topic. Even when I rebuilt an index entry, deleted the term, then added it new, re-added its keywords, got the same results. When I move keywords in the index term, to re-order, they immediately snap back to their alphabetical positions, cannot retain the moves to better order them.

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Community Expert ,
Aug 03, 2020 Aug 03, 2020

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I am told the logic of the page numbering is the order of the topics is based on the order of the topic titles under a keyword.

 

So if the keyword is Test and it has Alpha topic linked that because of the TOC comes on page 100 and Beta topic is also linked and comes on page 50, the you will see Test: 100, 50.

 

There is nothing you can do to change that other than to apply topic titles that force the order. Note I am talking about topic titles, not topic headings.

 

Adobe are investigating a solution for an update.

 

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Contributor ,
Aug 04, 2020 Aug 04, 2020

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Thank you for this information. I will need to see if there is any way to rebuild the project's index based on this to get it working as needed. Not yet sure if there is a way to do this in this project (change topic titles to force the order). Will try to get my brain around this, see if it would be possible in, this project. Not sure where to begin, how to "juggle" this to get it right.

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Community Expert ,
Aug 04, 2020 Aug 04, 2020

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@saratogacoach. Every time you post I get at least three email notifications. That usually only happens if someone has edited their post. I doubt you have edited all your posts or just opened them rather than viewing them. Before I report this as a forum bug, please confirm you haven't been opening the posts each time.

 

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Contributor ,
Aug 04, 2020 Aug 04, 2020

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I do come back to make small or large edits in the interest of clarity.

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Community Expert ,
Aug 04, 2020 Aug 04, 2020

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That's fine and thank you for doing that. I just wanted to make sure that was the case rather than some forum bug.

 

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Contributor ,
Aug 04, 2020 Aug 04, 2020

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As an update, I did test changing topic titles to see if there was any way to re-order these alphabetically, force the correct order for the index. No joy here, unfortunately. If for example, I want to take a topic like "Delivery Model" and make it first for an index term, by assigning it the title Aa, I then get a TOC which starts with Aa corresponding and linking to the Delivery Model topic. So, I will keep trying to figure out a work-around until an update adds a better option.

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Community Expert ,
Aug 04, 2020 Aug 04, 2020

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It sounds like you want to find an interim fix regardless. The TOC title updates automatically if untouched but it can be overridden in the TOC. 

 

image.png

 

It's explained in the About RoboHelp sample project. However if you go that route, in future when you update topic titles for other reasons, the TOC will no longer stay in sync.

 

Can you not live with it for a while?

 

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Contributor ,
Aug 07, 2020 Aug 07, 2020

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Apologies, Peter. Unfortunately, didn't see your last posting until now, when by chance I browsed the forum. Although I have signed up to receive email notifications when a posting is replied to, haven't gotten them for a long while. Not sure how to fix this forum email notification feature?

 

Regarding an interim fix for indexing, will probably hold off for now, since forcing the TOC topic titles may do more harm than good since I regularly update this specific project. It will be difficult to keep track of changes. Better to wait for a more permanent fix, less cumbersome.

 

BTW RH-SharePoint, which I just made use of, is an awesome feature! I suspect that it is a good way to back up a project, keep it safely on the cloud in case the origianl file becomes corrupted.

 

Thank you again for your helpful follow up and suggestions.

 

Stephen

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Community Expert ,
Aug 08, 2020 Aug 08, 2020

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Not sure how to fix this forum email notification feature?

It would appear Adobe also have no idea how to fix it as the problem has been ongoing since May for some people. Try posting in Community Feedback but don't hold your breath!

 

Fro anyone else looking at this thread, it's worth mentioning that there are two sides to SharePoint. SharePoint Online for publishing an output and SharePoint for source control.

 

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