Indexing

[Michael Day <mikeday@yeslogic.com>]

Hi,

We develop Prince, a tool for printing XML by applying CSS, and have been
developing a CSS stylesheet for DocBook to include in the next release.
This will allow you to convert books written in DocBook XML into PDF files
or PostScript output, without using XSLT or XSL-FO.

However, currently Prince ignores <indexterm> elements, and they do not
appear in the printed output. We are considering adding an indexing option
to Prince which would generate output like the following:

<index>
    <primary>
        <term>XML</term>
        <page>12</page>
        <pages>15-19</pages>
    </primary>
    <primary>
        <term>SGML</term>
        <secondary>
            <term>XML vs.</term>
            <page>17</pages>
            <pages>30-34</pages>
        </secondary>
        <secondary>
            <term>popularity of</term>
            <page>35</page>
        </secondary>
    </primary>
</index>

This output could be then transformed using some simple XSLT into
appropriate markup and included at the end of the DocBook file for
subsequent printing.

Does this sound like a good way to go? Does anyone here have any
experience with other methods of producing indicies from DocBook?

Thank you,

Michael Day

-- 
YesLogic Prince prints XML!
http://yeslogic.com/prince