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Hello. I am a newish indexer for a book that is currently being written. When the authors finish each chapter, they send it to me, and the expectation is that I will index each chapter as I receive it. I am a little worried about this approach. It seems like I will end up having tons of duplicate index tags on terms.
I'm worried I'm not making sense...I'm sorry. I guess what I mean is this: If I index chapter 1, and I tag the word "atmosphere," then I will have a list of page numbers in chapter, right? But then when I get and index chapter 2, I will tag all instances of "atmosphere"--only now, in addition to tagging all the "atmosphere"s in chapter 2, I will also re-tag all the instances in chapter 1. I've had this "double tagging" problem in the past, and the only way I found to fix it was to go through and manually remove the duplicate tags. So I'm concerned I will have to do that on a large scale in this book, when all the chapters are in. I would prefer to index once the book is complete, but just in case I don't have that option: is there a way to do it chapter by chapter without making too much extra work for myself? (If there is no real way to do it, that's also good to know. I can just tell the authors I'll need the whole book before I can start indexing.)
Sure.
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Sure.
This should generate you one index of all the chapters, with only one index marker for each index entry you create. Easy Peasy.
Hope this helps,
Randy
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To add a minor point to Randy's excellent advice, you can add chapters to your ID Book file as you get them. Then index them with the book-based index list.
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Thank you for this, too!
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Oh awesome--thank you so much!
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I have a 24 Chapter Book I want to index. I just cannot understand how to do this. I have a Book file set up and I get a perfect Chapter pdf so I know it works and now I want to index this using book. I can index one chapter but not the whole book. I cannot find any advice on how to do this.
On the index panel I see a book option. Do I tick this and then go through my book making entires on Chpaters that I open from the book file? Or do I make a special generated list at the end of my chapters? I tried this using "Use documents from file" but it didn't work. I got just one single entry on Page I
Do I have to select an entry from a chapter? Or do I just make and entry?
I do wish Adobe made using Book easier as it is so good but so hard to work out how to use.
This is probably so easy but I cannot see how to do this. I am good with the Adobe suite. Please help!
Maybe I should give up on the index!
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I wouldn't give up on InDesign's indexing functions. Once you master them, they're pretty powerful and, after the dirty work of making all your index entries.
I'm simplifying this a lot, but my workflow goes like this, using your 24-chapter example:
Now you're ready to create your index.
One important note: There's one check box I'd recommend you never use. Never select the Replace Existing Index check box. If you need to run an updated index for your book, create a new one and replace the bad old index with the good new one. Like the Saturday Night Live characters Hans and Franz would tell you: "Listen to me now, and believe me later."
You can get the lowdown on creating indexes here.
This should get you where you want to be.
Good luck,
Randy
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Hi Randy
Thank you for your reply! I do appreciate your help, which I am going to try.
I am good with computers so I had a "play" on a copy. I read through Adobe's Create an Index in Design which to me is seems to be written in Martian.
It said "Open all documents in the Book file", so I did all 25 of them 26 being the empty Index pages and I started to index. If you have all the Chapters open the indexing works. It will take me a couple of hours to work through this. Then I should be able to generate my index. It appears you need all the chapters open to see what is happening. Fortunately there is a drop menu down to find the chapter you want. If you don't have them all open the indexing does not work.
In this support item it tells you the short cut to make the entry conform. John Smith = Smith John: It then give 2 entries in the index window, so fingers crossed as that may cause a problem
I use most of the Adobe suite but have found Book File the hardest to get my head around. Makes Prem Pro and Audition and even Illustrator seem like chld's play. I think because it looks as if the chapters will merge seemlessly but as I have found out they don't or perhaps do when you have them all open at once.
Adobe does not make this easy. Every time I use "Grid" in Photoshop, illustrator or InDesign which I do on occasions, they all do the same thing in a completely different way and I have to look them up! No one has produced a YouTube on Indexing using a Book file. I wonder why?
I'll report back when finished. Obviously this is for a print version but what happens in E-Pub? I'll worry about that later.