Re: [dita] Indexterm: page ranges

[Eliot Kimber <ekimber@innodata-isogen.com>]

Erik Hennum wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Hi, Eliot and TC:
> 
> Eliot Kimber <ekimber@innodata-isogen.com> wrote on 10/04/2005 08:00:11 AM:
> 
> 
>>... for many authors index terms are precisely a marker indicating the
>>occurrence of a specific word or phrase at a specific location.
>>
>>That is, while sometimes index entries are exactly as Erik states (and
>>this is why they would normally generate a page range in the rendered
>>index) it is not an exclusive, or necessarly even typical, use of index
>>markers.
> 
> 
> Point taken.  As the thread has noted previously, such occurrences of
> indexable language would be better handled as mentions delimited with
> <keyword> or <term> rather than with <indexterm> markers.  Instead of
> requiring the writer to provide the term twice as in the following example
> 
>    For the proper care and feeding of an
>    element<indexterm>element</indexterm>, you usually supply content.
> 
> the processing might make use of the inline term for the index:
> 
>    For the proper care and feeding of an <term>element</term>, you usually
>    supply content.

Agreed.

The only fly in this ointment is when the term as written in the text 
isn't the form you want indexed, because you need to group it, you are 
indexing via a synonym, or you are indexing a different form of the same 
word ("install" vs "installing").

Of course, as soon as one mentions "indexing by synonym" you're back to 
thinking the synonyms should be managed separately and used to generate 
the index and then we're right back at really sophisticated index 
management features... :-)

Cheers,

E.

-- 
W. Eliot Kimber
Professional Services
Innodata Isogen
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ekimber@innodata-isogen.com
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