The InDesigner

Thank you for this very helpful episode’36. However, I despair at getting your suggested keyboard-short-cut “Shift+Control+Alt+[” to do what it is ought to do, namely to copy all the words to the index panel from a somewhat topic-list.txt taken from a somewhere on the canvas placed textframe (just as you did on your videocast). what’s wrong with the shortcut or does it have anything to do with the fact that I’m using a german keyboard layout (“[” here is to be found on the number-key “8”).
meanwhile I figured that one can create an index-list in word beforhand and then simply place this very file somewhere on the margin of an indesign-doc. the result is that all word instantly show up in the topic-mode of the index-panel. however, this is not the way you suggested to work, so I dearly ask you to make me see what I’ve been doing wrong.

best,
waine

Sir – I’m as deeply impressed as I’m grateful for your instant response as well as your understandig guidance. Thank you very much. The solution on the German keyboard-layout runs: “Shift+Ctrl+Alt+Ö”.
May I, however, ask you to grant us (at least: me) a little bit more insight what the “Index: Add new index entry (reversed)”-option (which is “Shift+Ctrl+Alt+Ä” on the German keyboard-layout) is all about?

All the best and thanks again,
waine

Michael – not an old but a wise man, so to speak 🙂

And by recalling Nichel Frenchs name, you’ll see that I meanwhile successfully moved on in watching episode #37 which I should have done before reposting my second question. Since I’m aware of the fact that you might be consulted – every day – with much more crucial questions and problems (that yearn for your sweet care) as I have put forward the last two times, I promise to be more decent with posting on your blog the next time.

All the best,
waine

Dear Michael,

Thank you for your remarkable tutorials – I have found them to be immensely helpful. I have two small issues with this tute though and hope you can help:

1. the writer has provided names in the index list in this format – ‘Smith, Bob’ but in the text he is always referred to as ‘Bob Smith’. I can’t seem to get indesign to find the names properly.

2. Once i’ve got the list into the topic and reference tabs, when i delete the list from the pasteboard, the list under references also vanishes.

I’m watching your tute again in the hope I missed something but i’ve already watched it three times and am close to despair : )

Any advice?

Cheers,

Deshan

Deshan —

Thanks for the great podcast feedback. In answer to your questions, if you have a provided list in your InDesign document that’s set up as Last, First, I suggest you use GREP in CS3 to swap the names. Assuming that each name is on its own line, what you want to search for is the beginning of a paragraph followed by any one or more letters, followed by a comma, then a space and any one or more letters through the end of a paragraph.

In the Find What field of the Find/Change dialog (under the GREP tab), that would look like this:

^(.+), (.+)$

The ^ symbol means the beginning of a paragraph, the first .+ represents the last name and the second one represents the first name. Putting each of those in parenthesis makes them a “subexpression” that can be recalled later in the Change To field, where you’d type this:

$2 $1

Each of those numbers preceded by the dollar sign refers to the text found in the search. $1 means, literally, Found Text 1 which, in this case is the last name. $2 means Found Text 2 which would be the first name. Swapping the order in which the found text is put back will convert all of your names to First Last.

I should mention that you should have just the list of names selected in your document, and choose Selection: from the Search pull-down menu, to avoid finding other text in your document that matches this pattern. Once that’s done, you can use this to generate your Topic list, and the rest should be easier.

For the second part of your question…yes, when you delete the list from the pasteboard, the references to that name (which would all be PB for pasteboard) also vanish. That makes sense, because there’s nothing there to refer to anymore. However, the topics are not deleted. You’ll still see them in the Index panel under Topic mode.

Hullo Michael,

Many thanks for the detailed reply! I shall slug a pint of black coffee and attempt this today. I’ve actually finished the index the painful way but your method will save me on the next book, so I ought to have a go.

Re part two of my question – I noted that ‘PB’ entries vanish in your podcast. What’s odd on CS2 is that the *names * also vanish, whereas in your podcast, only the ‘PB’ references vanish, while the names stay on (in Ref and Topic). Weird. Maybe a glitch with CS2?

Again though, much obliged.

deshan

Ann —

The Mac I use for the podcasts is a pretty state-of-the-art Intel machine, but there may be another factor involved in the speed of my results in the podcasts: editing. For the sake of moving things quickly in each episode, I painstakingly edit out any delays, hang-ups or lengthy processing times so the audience doesn’t have to sit through them.

That being said, 10 to 15 minutes sounds excessively long to me to generate an 80-reference index. Something else may be going on there. Unfortunately, that podcast was both the first and last time I’d worked with indexes, so I don’t have much advice to offer regarding possible fixes. If I learn more, though, I will let you know.

hi michael,
The InDesigner website is so, so helpful. I use it often. So many thanks for all the indesign insight you’ve made available!

My question: I am working on a long spanish language document. I’m creating it as an indesign book. One thing I don’t understand is why there are already index references in chapters that i have not indexed. Where are the references coming from if the terms are not tagged in the text and is there anyway to clear the index in order to start with a clean slate?

Hoping to hear from you,
Christopher

Alice,

When you re-opened this file where you weren’t able to see the index or access any of the book-related options, did you just open the file, or did you the .indb Book file, and open the file from the Book panel? It sounds like you just opened the individual file. If so, close it, open the “.indb” that manages the book (and to which the index is tied), then double-click that same file’s name in the Book panel. You should see the index intact that way.

Hi Michael,

Ok I am working on a 2 volume book each has ~612+ pages and I generated the index for vol 1 and it worked successfully, then I tried to generate vol 2 and I got the spinning wheel (InDesign not responding). However, what I really need to do and was not successful at, is to generate both volumes indexes together. I believe the problem is in vol 2. I generated each chapter in vol 2 individually and that was successful. So where do I go from here? I am currently working in CS3.

BTW, your website is extremely helpful : )

Melissa