Quote:
Originally Posted by Tex2002ans
<snippage>
 I agree.
Too many variables change (page size, font size, margins), and the littlest tweak to even ONE variable (footnotes being indented 1mm to the left) can throw all subsequent PDF pages off.
There's a reason why layouts of physical books are completely locked down when books are passed to Indexers. Trying to reverse engineer all that work is... extremely tedious. |
First, Tex, I wanted to say that you have some incredibly clever solutions in there, truly.
Secondly, the lack of understanding, of most people, of the reality of indices--it's boggling. (@AlexHoang, this is absolutely NOT directed at you; we've had some run-ins about indices, at my shop lately, and I'm taking this moment to spew a bit.)
We've had clients that want us to magically take the index from a previously-printed book, make a new printed book (with new paging and page numbers, right?) and somehow, "convert" the old index to work in the new. Uh...nope? I mean, can you imagine the time and effort in that? You'd have to read the entire bloody book, and then work through the index, item by item, and try to figure out what it was, on original page 36, that the indexer thought was worth noting, and then find it in the new, re-tag it, lather-rinse-repeat for a thousand index entries, and then generate a new index. Uh, no. Not for what WE make, that's for damn sure.
We've had to do things like, extract text (scan/ocr/proof) to a new Word file, send it to the client, TEACH THEM HOW TO USE THE TAGGING TOOL, to mark things for an index, and then generate a new index, THEN import the cursed thing into INDD, tag the entries...I mean, in the Cheap Seats, so to speak, making new indices is a freaking nightmare. (On a bright note, I've had two clients lately buy indexing services from an associate, so at least those are done well.)
Oy. If you're a non-fiction author, before you publish, learn how indices are made, not only through some "Then A Miracle Occurs" mindset, but the actual mechanics. Unless you get picked up by Random House, pal, you're going to need to handle it yourself, so, learn now. Save your designer some hassle.
Hitch