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SKY Index Professional Tips
The tips below have been extracted from
the SKYIndexUsers Archive of Yahoo’s eGroups forum. They were kindly posted
by Michael Wyatt and have been modified by formatting them for the web and
by performing some minor editing.
Although we have no reason to doubt the
accuracy of these tips, they have not been tested by SKY Software and it is
recommended that you try these tips on a test index prior to use as part of
your daily indexing. ALWAYS MAKE A BACKUP OF IMPORTANT INDEX DATA BEFORE
PERFORMING A SIGNIFICANT EDITING TASK!!!
Available Tips:
Sometimes you will have established a
compound heading in the form of a phrase, and then you find you need to
split it into a heading plus subheading. How do you do this easily if you
have already attached a number of locators to the heading?
Let's say you have established the
heading "goals at work" and attached half a dozen page references. Now you
find that "goals" have cropped up in a different context, so you want to
change your earlier entries to the heading "goals" with the subheading "at
work".
-
Create a group: Highlight one
instance of the heading and create a group by clicking the "Grouped"
speedbar button, pressing Shift+F6, or choosing" View > Grouped".
(Actually, you can omit this step, but I like to include it so that I can
check that what I expect to happen is what actually happens.)
-
In one of the records insert a
comma after "goals".
-
Propagate the change: Press
Ctrl+Alt+Enter, so that all the records read "goals, at work"
-
Select all the records: If you have
grouped them, press Ctrl+Insert or choose Edit > Select All; if you have
not grouped them, press Ctrl+Space or choose Edit > Select Record.
-
Demote: Click the "Demote" speedbar
button, press Ctrl+F6, or choose Edit > Demote.
-
When the "Select field" box pops
up, choose "Main" and click OK.
-
Ungroup the records: If you grouped
the records, ungroup them by returning to the view you were working in
before.
In version 6, you apply formatting to
individual strings of characters text in the same way as in version 5.1
However, there are a couple of changes
in version 6:
By default, text in the data entry
grid is displayed as formatted, not surrounded by formatting codes as in
version 5.1.
If the formatting runs to the end of
the cell, you don't have to switch off the formatting; SKY Index will do
that for you automatically when you move to another cell.
This is a great improvement over the
codes that used to clutter up the data entry grid in version 5.1. Now, what
you see is what you get.
However, although you can't see the
formatting codes, they are still there. You can verify this by typing in
some text together with the actual codes -- try typing "/i1This text is in
italics/i0" and then press the return key. This creates a challenge when you
are using AutoComplete (this used to be called AutoEntry in version 5.1);
and also when you are using the Find/Replace dialogue. In both of these
cases you must type the formatting codes at the beginning of the text.
AutoComplete
For example, let's say you are indexing
a book on the history of cinema, where there are going to be a lot of names
of films in italics. You know you have already typed in "Battleship Potemkin"
in italics, and you can't face typing it again, so you want AutoComplete to
do it for you. For AutoComplete to complete your typing you must begin by
typing "/i1Battleship ...". (You can set up a macro to insert "/i1"). To
check this out, type a couple of headings in italics or bold and then look
for them in the AutoComplete Manager.
Find/Replace
Similarly, let's say you want to find
all records that contain a cell at any level that begins with the word
"Battleship" in italics. In the Find/Replace dialogue box's Find What
textbox you would type: </i1Battleship. Check it out by typing some text in
bold, italics, or underlined, highlight it and press Ctrl+F -- the
highlighted text appears in the Find What textbox together with its codes.
Neither the Find What textbox nor the Replace With textbox allows you to
insert formatted text in the same way as the data entry grid. Instead, you
can insert formatted text by typing the formatting codes either side of it.
Maybe this sounds like a bit of a hassle, but it actually has an enormous
benefit: It means that you can find and/or replace the formatting itself
without having to specify text. Let's say you need to change all italic page
references to bold -- in the Find What textbox you would type /i, and in the
Replace With textbox you would type /b, and choose the Page field.
Hide and Ignore text
Although the methods for invoking Hide
and Ignore text remain the same as in version 5.1, the codes that version 6
inserts are different. You will notice that under default conditions, Hidden
text is displayed in the data entry grid as blue, and Ignored text is
displayed in green. However, the codes that SKY Index inserts in the
background are /z1 and /z0 either side of Hidden text, and /y1 and /y0
either side of Ignored text. Check it out: code some text as Hidden or
Ignored, highlight it and press Ctrl+F. Thus, if you are using AutoComplete
for the name McDonald, for example, and you know that you have "hidden" an
"a" between the M and the c, you would need to begin typing:
M/z1a/z0cDonald.
Reveal codes
You can switch on the display of
formatting codes: Choose Options > Program Options, click the Data Entry
tab, and place a checkmark next to Reveal Codes. For most of the time it is
a great advantage to have the codes suppressed. But I have occasionally
found it useful to "reveal" them when I have totally stuffed up a
"Hide/Ignored" combination and need to sort it out; or imported an index
from someone else's TXT file and need to fix up a formatting mess they
created; or I am using a monochrome monitor and have to be able to
distinguish Hidden and Ignored text.
Version 6 has some new commands for
incrementing and decrementing page references. You must be in View mode, but
the marquee can be over any cell, not just the page cell.
-
To increment a single page number
(e.g. to change 37 to 38): press + (plus key)
-
To decrement a single page number
(e.g. to change 37 to 36): press - (dash or hyphen key)
-
To increment a single page number
and move to the next record: press Control and +
-
To increment the right-hand
number of a page range (e.g. to change 37-42 to 37-43): press +
-
To decrement the right-hand number
of a page range (e.g. to change 37-42 to 38-41): press -. Note that SKY
Index will not let you decrement the right-hand number to less than one
more than the left-hand number.
-
To increment the left-hand number
of a page range, delete the dash and the right-hand number, and move to
the next record (e.g. to change 37-42 to 38): press Control and +
A short while ago I described some
macros for managing page references. Here they are again, updated for
version 6. There are two things to note:
-
All macro commands must be typed in
lower case. Yes, I know that the examples in the online Help are in
capitals, but you must enter them in lower case or they won't work
-
Before invoking these macros, you
must be in View mode and the marquee must be over the page cell. (The very
useful Alt+F2 has not been retained in Version 6)
To remove the second number and dash
from a page range and move to the next record (e.g. to change 37-42 to 37):
{f2}^{bs 2}\
-
To copy the page number from the
cell above and move to the next record: {up}^c{down}^v\
-
To convert the page number to a
page range with the second number being the next page (e.g. to change 37
to 37-38): {+}^c-{f2}-^v\
You can now insert characters from up to
two other fonts into your indexes. This is very useful when you have to
insert special symbols, such as an alpha or beta into names of chemical
compounds or of stars.
Setting the alternative fonts: In the
Index Options dialogue box, click the Fonts tab and then click the
"Alternative fonts" button. You will see that there are already two fonts
set up by default (if they are installed on your computer): Alternative font
1 is Courier New, and Alternative font 2 is Symbol. The Font Preview box
shows you what they look like -- if the preview box is blank just click the
name of the font and it will show up. You can choose any font that has been
installed on your computer. The fonts you choose will have no effect on your
index until you actually apply them.
Applying the fonts: To change the font
of a string of text, highlight the text (or to change the contents of an
entire cell, change to View mode) and either choose Format > Alternative
font 1 (or Alternative font 2); or press Alt+F1 (or (Alt+F2).
It is important to remember that for the
normal text of any index the font used to display the index in the SKY Index
screen (set up in Program Options > Program Font) is generally different
from the font used to output the index (set up in Index Options > Fonts).
Only the Alternative fonts display and print using the same fonts.
You can now insert introductory notes at
the front of your indexes. In the output RTF file they will be coded as IndexNote.
To insert an introductory note, in the
Index Options dialogue box click the Header/Footer tab. Type your
introductory note in the "Introductory Note" textbox. You can format text by
highlighting the text to be formatted and pressing the usual Ctrl+I for
italics, Ctrl+B for bold etc.
Although the introductory note appears
in the Header/Footer tab, it is inserted at the head of your index even if
you choose "RTF (no headers)" in the Output tab
In version 5.1, when you chose RTF
output the style tags were preset and could not be altered: The main heading
was called Main, the first subheading level Sub1, the second subheading
level Sub2, and so on. This occasionally caused problems for the typesetter,
especially if they had already set up the styles for the index in their
typesetting or word-processing program. Although it is possible in Word to
change the names of style tags, if you don't know how to do it, it is quite
difficult and unintuitive. Moreover, many editors and typesetters are
unaware that it can be done at all, and will go through your index manually
inserting tabs for each subheading. We've all seen indexes that's happened
to -- yecch!
Now you can get SKY Index to output an
RTF file using any style tag your client specifies. In the Index Options
dialogue box click the Fonts tab. Along the top is a series of "radio
buttons" marked Sep, Main, Sub1, etc. Click the appropriate radio button for
the level you want to rename. In the "Style Name" textbox is the default
style tag that SKY Index will insert. You can overtype this name with
whatever the client has specified.
Try it. Open an index (I always use an
index that I call "deleteme" specifically for this kind of test). Print it
to your word-processor. In the word-processor click on a main heading. In
the list of style tags (in Word this list is usually the first box in the
toolbar below the speedbutton icons) notice that the term "Main" appears. As
you click on a subheading it changes to "Sub1", and on a separator it
changes to "Separator". Close the word-processor.
Back in SKY Index, open the Fonts tab,
click the Main button, and in the Style Name box type "Top level". Click the
Sub1 button and in the Style Name box type "Second level". Click OK. Print
it to your word-processor again. Click on a heading and a subheading, and
watch the style tag list box.
Have you discovered the Browse function
yet? Zowie!
Either choose Search > Browse, or press
Ctrl+Alt+B. The Browse Mode box pops up. Just start typing, and both the
preview pane and the data entry grid snap to the closest entry they can
locate. As soon as the entry you are looking for appears, you can stop
typing and press Esc.
If you have a lot of subheadings under a
heading, as soon as the heading is highlighted on the screen, stop typing
(you don't have to finish typing it) and press the semicolon key -- anything
you type now will be searched as a subheading of the highlighted heading.
You can use as many semicolons as you have subheading levels.
To start a new search, simply press the
enter/return key to clear the Browse box, and start typing again.
I find the browse function particularly
useful when I am proofing editing changes that I made to a draft index.
I have been indexing a large procedure
manual, where the section number is used as the locator. The section number
consists of the chapter number followed by a section number, separated by a
full stop (period). All section numbers under ten are preceded by a zero.
This doesn't seem to be a problem with
single locators, such as 1.05. However, where there is a range, such as
1.05-1.25, SKY Index suppresses the initial zero and displays 1.5-1.25.
Evidently, this is because of the way
SKY Index handles locators. The solution (provided by Kamm) is to enter a
tilde instead of a leading zero, and use the translation feature in the
Locators tab of the Index Options dialogue to convert the tilde to a zero.
Thus, I enter 1.~5-1.25, which displays
in the Preview Pane as 1.05-1.25.
If you have a heading or subheading that
is too long to be completely visible in a data entry grid cell, you have
several options: * You can adjust the width of the column by grabbing the
column divider in the grid's header and moving it across. * You can adjust
the depth of all rows by grabbing a row divider in the record button column
and moving it down. * You can put up with seeing only a bit of the text at a
time.
All of these have their familiar
disadvantages.
But now in version 6 we have (ta da!)
the Text Editor. With your cursor in the cell you are editing (either in
Edit mode or View mode, it doesn't matter) press Shift+F2. The whole of the
contents of the cell appears in the Text Editor box. You'll notice the text
is highlighted: to get to the beginning press the Home or left arrow key; to
get to the end press the End or right arrow key. You can type as much or as
little in the Text Editor box as you please: you can even type a small novel
if you want.
The Text Editor box works like other
Windows boxes -- you can: * resize it: grab an edge or corner and pull it *
move it around: hold down the mouse button over the colored bar along the
top and move the mouse * maximize it: click the square in the top right
corner.
In the Text Editor box you have the full
range of editing and formatting options that are available during normal
editing, using the Text Editor's own Edit and Format menus. You can even use
the normal editing and formatting keyboard shortcuts. The only thing you
can't use is the speedbutton icons. (A warning: If you format text as Small
Caps it will display in the Text Editor as strikethrough text. It appears
correctly as soon as you exit the text box and move to a new cell.)
In addition, the Text Editor has a great
feature that is not available when you are editing within the grid: you can
highlight text and then drag and drop it elsewhere in the Text Editor. If
you hold down the Control key while you drag, the text will be copied rather
than cut.
When you've finished entering or editing
text, either click OK or press the enter key to place the text in the
correct cell; or click cancel or press the Esc key to abandon the changes.
To print a draft of your index, you no
longer have to "print" to a word-processor, and then print from that. You
can simply choose File > Print draft and SKY Index will use WordPad to print
the index directly.
Note: There will be no headers, footers,
or columns. You will need to "print" to your word-processor to see those.
If you have formatted text as italics,
bold, etc., you can easily undo it: Highlight the text (or choose View mode)
and either choose Format > Plain or press Alt+F10.
In version 5.1 you were able to set up
default options for all new indexes by saving an empty index as default.skx.
In version 6 this is done through a
template called default.tpl.
To convert your default.skx index for
use in version 6, open it (you may have to do a bit of clicking and
searching to find it) and save the properties as a template: choose Options
> Export Index Options. A "Save File As" box will appear, with the Templates
folder already selected. In the File Name textbox type "default" and click
Save.
From now on each time you create a new
index the default template will be applied. SKY will ask you a short series
of crazy questions, but put up with it -- it's worth it! You can update it
at any time simply by exporting any index's properties as default.tpl.
You can drag index entries from SKY
Index directly into a Word file, and the resulting embedded index entries
will be formatted correctly for index generation. The Word file with its
embedded index entries can be imported into any other program that fully
supports RTF index codes. I have not tested many desktop publishing
programs; I do know that Ventura Publisher imports the index codes
correctly, but that Quark Xpress (the default industry standard in
Australia) does not. Perhaps some of you could experiment with PageMaker,
FrameMaker, InDesign, MS Publisher etc and let us know how well these import
embedded index terms.
Of course, you still have to create the
index manually before you embed the terms in the Word document, but you do
save yourself the time of manually retyping them yourself into the Word
document+.
- Open your completed index in SKY Index. Display it
in Page Ordered or As Entered order, or whatever order reflects the order
in which you will carry out the embedding.
- Open the document that is to receive the embedded
index entries in Word -- use a copy, not the original! Make sure you have
the Show/Hide speedbutton (the one with what looks like a stylized back-to
front P) depressed -- each word is separated by a dot, and each paragraph
ends with the back-to-front P (called a Pilcrow sign -- I learnt something
new today) -- otherwise you won't be able to see your index entries.
- Tile SKY Index and Word side by side on your
monitor's desktop. You only have to have the Main column visible in SKY
Index.
- Embed index entries one by one:
a.
Highlight a record by clicking on its record
button.
b.
Grab any cell (I use the Main cell) and drag
it across to the Word document.
c.
Drop the entry in the appropriate place in
the Word document. If you have never embedded index entries before, you'll
notice that each entry is enclosed in curly braces; it begins with "xe "
(telling Word it's an index entry); the index data is enclosed in second
marks (like ditto marks); and levels of subheading are separated by a
colon. All elements except the braces can be edited.
d.
Exclaim in amazement and delight.
- To generate your index when you have finished, or if
you want to check progress part way through, click the Show/Hide
speedbutton again to hide the word-space and paragraph-end symbols,
otherwise the page numbers will come out all wrong.
- Place your cursor at the end of the document, in a
new paragraph. Choose Insert > Index and Tables, and choose your options
in the Index tab.
- Click OK.
Notes:
·
Sorting instructions: If you have used
sorting overrides ("Hide Text" and/or "Ignore Text"), or if your the index
is to be sorted letter-by-letter instead of word-by-word, you can ask SKY
Index to include sorting instructions in each index entry that you drag into
the Word document. In SKY Index choose Options > Program Options and in the
Preferences tab place a checkmark beside "Include sort information when
embedding". Sort information will be included in ALL entries that you drag
across. You'll notice in the Word document that the sort information appears
for each level of heading and subheading, from which it is separated by a
semicolon.
·
Cross-references: When you drag
cross-references across to Word, SKY Index automatically formats them
correctly by inserting the symbol "\t". Word has no way of verifying the
validity of cross-references.
·
Page spans: Word manages page spans by
using what it calls "bookmarks". You can insert named markers anywhere in
the text to create these bookmarks; creating page spans is only one of the
number of uses that Word puts bookmarks to. When you create an index entry
for a span in Word, you (1) insert a bookmark at the end of the span, (2)
insert the index entry at the beginning of the span, and (3) in the index
entry insert the name of the bookmark, which Word precedes by the symbol
"\r". Clearly, SKY Index has no idea where the span ends, so whenever you
have used a page span in an index entry, SKY inserts after the "\r" symbol
the text "SKY0001". You must create a bookmark and overwrite "SKY0001" with
the name of the bookmark in every case, otherwise you will get error
messages when you generate the index in Word. As far as I know, there is no
way to set formatting preferences for page spans (simple, aggressive or
Chicago) in Word.
Version 6 has its own character map; it
no longer relies on the Windows character map. This has advantages and
disadvantages. The advantages are: you don't have to install the Windows
character map on your computer; and it's easy to find the fonts you need.
To invoke the character map, choose
Tools > Character Map. From the dropdown list you can choose between the two
Alternative fonts that you have set up (Options > Index Options > Fonts >
Alternative Fonts), and the font you have chosen as your screen font
(Options > Program Options > Program Font). If you choose the screen font,
any character you choose will be output in the font you chose for output
(Options > Index Options > Fonts).
The buttons down the right of the
dialogue box are a little confusing. I'll explain them as I go along.
-
Place your cursor where you want
the special character to appear.
-
Choose Tools > Character map.
-
Choose the font.
-
Either click the character you
want and then click Copy; or double-click the character you want. Either
way, the character will appear in the little box at the top marked
"Characters to copy". Keep on choosing characters till you have all you
want.
-
To insert the characters in the
index, click Insert.
The disadvantage is that you no longer
have the keystroke tips available, so you can't make a note of the ones you
use most commonly. For this reason, I have listed the keystrokes below for
some of the commonly used special characters (out of a total of 128) that
appear in your screen font, so that you can bypass the Character Map. In
each case, hold down the Alt key, press the numbers on the numeric keypad on
the right of your keyboard (not the ones along the top of the keyboard), and
then release the Alt key. Since the characters below may not display
correctly on your email screen, I have added the explanations that appear in
the Windows character map just in case.
Many books on Windows contain a chart
showing the complete symbol set of all 128 characters. I have created such a
chart for standard fonts such as Times New Roman and Courier New. If you
would like a copy, email me offlist.
You can incorporate special characters
into acronyms and macros. For example, to set up a macro to type the letter
e acute (é):
-
Click the <New Macro> button to
invoke the macro editor
-
Put the cursor in the Macro
textbox
-
Hold down the Alt key and press
0233. You can do the same in the Acronym Editor for words containing
special characters.
If you don't know the code for a special
character:
-
Open the Character Map
-
Double-click the character
-
Click Select
-
Press Ctrl+C
-
Click Close
-
Open the Macro Editor
-
With your cursor in the Macro
textbox, press Ctrl+V
-
Click OK
If you want to use a symbol from the
Symbol font, then (assuming that the Symbol font is set up as Alternative
font 2) at step 7: a) type %{f2} b) press Ctrl+V c) type %{f2}
As well as when you type a space, did
you know that Acronyms now expand when you press any key that takes you to
another cell -- enter, tab, backslash, or any of the cursor keys?
Acronyms have been greatly improved in
Version 6. They have their own dockable toolbar along the top of the screen.
To set up a single acronym, simply click the <New Acronym> button in the
toolbar, and type the acronym and its expansion in the Acronym Editor. There
is no limit to the length of the expansion.
To enter several acronyms at once, or to
manage your acronyms, call up the Data Entry Options dialogue box; the
Acronyms tab is on top. The acronyms and their expansions are displayed in a
grid just like the data entry grid -- you can use exactly the same editing
and formatting keystrokes as when you are doing data entry in the index,
including Ctrl+A to append a new acronym and Ctrl+I/Ctrl+B for italics and
bold. Pressing Shift+F2 with your cursor in a cell takes you to the Text
Editor, where you have the full range of options that is available when you
use the Text Editor editing index records. There is no limit to the number
of acronyms you can have, although only the first 40 will be displayed in
the Acronym toolbar. To sort the acronyms into alphabetical order, click the
Refresh button.
Are there words that you consistently
mistype? If so, you can use Acronyms as an auto-correct feature. Type the
misspelt versions into the Acronym textbox and the correct spelling into the
Expansion textbox in the Acronyms tab of your default template. Then
whenever you type a word incorrectly, SKY Index will automatically correct
it for you. For example, in indexing recipe books I invariably type "prok"
instead of "pork". I have set up the acronym "prok" and its expansion as
"pork", so that whenever I type "prok" SKY Index automatically corrects my
spelling to "pork".
When you are working in team, you can
keep track of who created records and when they created them. The team
leader can also edit records and record the date edited.
When you create a record, SKY Index
attaches to it the initials that you typed in Program Options when you
installed version 6, as well as the date you created the record. When that
record is modified, SKY Index also attaches the initials of the person who
modified it and the date it was modified. You can view all this information
by going to the View menu and choosing Creator, Edited, Date Created and
Date Edited.
To retain this information when merging
indexes, you must use Merge. You can't use Export and Import, because when
you Export an index you lose the information about creation and editing
information.
If you're having problems swapping large
files, take a Snapshot of the file and send that instead (the filename ends
with .SNP). The receiver can create a new index with the same name then
choose Revert.
On a couple of occasions I have had a
client specify that page runs be treated in a non-standard way. On one
occasion, a client didn't like the fact that "Aggressive" setting reduced
1095-1103 to 1095-103, which I had to agree looked pretty strange. Another
client specified that page numbers were to be "aggressive" when only the
last digit changed, but "simple" when the last two digits changed. Yikes!
How do you override the SKY Index page
run settings for individual locators? Short of examining every locator in
the output RTF file and changing it manually, that is.
The answer turns out to be very simple
-- thanks to Kamm for providing this one. In the Locators tab, click the
"Translation table" button. In the Translate column type "@" and in the the
To column type a hyphen, en-dash or whatever you have set the page run
separator to (to enter an en-dash hold down the Alt key and type 0150 on the
numeric keypad). Then when you are typing a page range that you don't want
SKY to modify, type @ instead of a hyphen. For example, for the client who
didn't want 1095-1103 to be reduced to 1095-103 when using the "aggressive"
setting, I typed "1095@1..." and SKY interpreted it as "1085-1103".
You've just completed a huge index with
heaps of specialist terms, proofread it meticulously, and delivered it. The
client was so impressed they want you to do another one on the same subject.
Can you face all that proofreading again?
Thankfully, you can use your earlier
index to create your own dictionary of specialist terms.
The instructions below look complex, but
once you've done it you'll see how easy it is.
1.
CREATE A DICTIONARY FILE:
a.
Open the index and "Save As" with a new name.
b.
Open the Find/Replace dialogue box.
c.
In the Find What textbox type an asterisk.
Leave Replace With blank. Place a checkmark next to Use Pattern Matching.
From Field choose Page.
d.
Click Find, then Replace All.
e.
In the Index Options dialogue box select the
Output Format tab.
f.
Select the "Text (ASCII)" preset.
g.
Delete everything in the boxes, including the
spaces next to Sub1, Sub2, Sub3.
h.
Select the Style tab and uncheck Alphabet
separators and Space before.
i.
Click OK.
j.
Print the index to Word.
2.
EDIT THE DICTIONARY FILE:
a.
Open the output file in Word (it will have
the extension .TXT).
b.
Open Find and Replace dialogue box.
c.
In the Find what textbox type a space.
d.
In the Replace with textbox type ^p
(circumflex followed by a lower-case letter p).
e.
Click Replace All, then Cancel.
3.
SORT THE DICTIONARY FILE: EITHER (this method
involves fewer operations, but if there are many duplicates you will end up
with a larger and possibly slower file):
a.
Select all the text (Ctrl+A).
b.
Choose Tables > Sort, and click OK.
c.
Edit the file by removing numbers,
punctuation, parentheses, quote marks etc. The Find and Replace box can
help you do this quickly.
d.
Save the file and close Word.
OR (this method involves more
operations, but removes duplicate terms thus reducing the file size):
a.
Save the file and close Word.
b.
Open SKY (or close any index that is open).
c.
Choose File > Import.
d.
Select the text file and click Open.
e.
In the Input Field Mapping box uncheck Fields
Are Enclosed In Quotes, and click OK.
f.
Either type a new name for the index, or
overwrite the earlier temporary index, and click OK.
g.
Choose Tools > Remove Duplicate Records and
click OK.
h.
With the index still in sorted order, edit it
by removing numbers, punctuation, parentheses, quote marks etc. Use
Find/Replace to help you.
i.
Set the output for Text output as above.
j.
Generate the index.
4.
INSTALL THE DICTIONARY FILE:
a.
Open Windows Explorer.
b.
Replace the new dictionary name's extension
.TXT with .DIC.
c.
Move the dictionary to the My Documents\SKY
Index\Templates folder.
d.
In Sky Index, choose Options > Program
Options > File Locations.
e.
Next to User Dictionary click the button with
three dots.
f.
Select the new dictionary and click Open, OK.
Deleted records
In Version 6, when you delete a record, it's not actually removed from the
index. You delete records in the same way as you did in version 5: select a
record or records and press the Del key. But instead of disappearing, the
records are marked to show that they are to be deleted, by being displayed
in the data entry grid as red (you can change the color in Program Options).
Deleted records are indicated on the Proofing Report by a letter x next to
the record number. You can undelete records by selecting them and pressing
Alt+Del. When you are sure that you want to remove deleted records
permanently, choose Tools > Remove Deleted Records.
You can hide the deleted records from
view by opening the filter (choose View > Filtered, press Shift + F9, or
click the Filter speedbutton), and checking "Hide Deleted Records". When you
delete a record while you have "Hide Deleted Records" switched on, it
disappears from the preview pane, but doesn't disappear immediately from the
data entry grid -- that would be too distracting -- until you refresh the
grid by pressing F5. Hiding deleted records from view also hides them from
other processes like printing, find/replace, spell checking, statistics, and
exporting.
If you want to remove a record
immediately and permanently, select it and press Ctrl+X.
Marked records:
The ability to mark or label records is new in version 6. It works just like
deleting records, except that you can't remove them from the index as a bloc
using Tools. Select a record or records and press Ctrl+M. The records are
displayed in magenta (you can change the color in Program Options), and are
indicated in the Proofing Report by an exclamation mark next to the record
number. You can unmark records by highlighting them and pressing Ctrl+Alt+M.
You can display or hide marked records
by using the Filter, in the same way as deleted records.
Some of the ways that I have used marked
records: * To create two indexes for the same book simultaneously. * To keep
track of records being charged at a different rate. * To annotate records to
be queried with the editor or author * To keep a record of cross-references
made to a heading (what librarians call "tracings")
I'm sure you'll think of many other
uses.
A regular client has sent me a book on
the information communications industry. As part of the fancy
up-to-the-minute design, the pages numbers all have three digits, so the
pages run 001 to 009, then 010 to 099, and then 100 on. Cute huh?
Well SKY Index doesn't think it's so
damn cute. Like me it wants strip those redundant leading zeroes and trash
them. How do I get SKY to chill out?
1. Open the Locators tab of the Index
Options dialogue box 2. Click the Translation table button. 3. In the
Translation column type @ (or any other symbol), and in the To column type 0
(zero). 4. Click OK, OK.
To enter the page number 030, type @30,
and the number displays in the Preview pane as 030.
The page numbers sort correctly: @@1 to
@@9, then @10 to @99, and then 100 on. They increment and decrement
correctly when you press the plus and minus keys. For page runs containing @
you have to type the complete run manually, but they do format correctly. I
even tried combining them with volume and chapters, and they still format
correctly.
This solution probably works with
Version 5 too. I haven't tested it. Why should I? I'm making so much money
by using version 6 that I've junked version 5 completely.
Some of SKY Index's most commonly used
functions can be accessed using by clicking the mouse's right button. This
saves you having to remember the keyboard shortcuts, or spending time
searching menus for these commands.
Hover your mouse over one of the cells
in the data entry grid and press the right mouse button. (Note that you need
to be in view mode.) A special menu pops up, divided into three sections:
the top one deals with cutting and pasting; the middle with duplicating; and
the bottom one with moving the contents of cells. Have a look at the context
menu today -- it could save you a lot of time in the future.
You can also right-click over records in
the preview pane. When you do this a menu pops up with the same options,
minus the cutting and pasting ones. I find this of limited value, since if
there is more than one record for an entry some of the actions affect only
the record with the lowest page number.
Like to keep your hands on the keyboard?
If you have a Windows keyboard, you can press the Context Menu key instead
-- that's the one just to the left of the right-hand Control key. The
context menu that appears acts on whichever cell is highlighted in the data
entry grid. To select a command, either press the up or down arrows on your
keyboard, or press the key for the underlined letter.
You will already have discovered that
version 6 installs a SKY Index shortcut on the Start menu. To start SKY
Index all you have to do is click the Windows Start button (or press the
Windows key) and then select "SKY Index Professional".
But did you realize that SKY Index puts
a shortcut for recently edited indexes in the Windows Documents menu? Click
Start, point to Documents, and then click on the name of the index you want
to open. SKY Index starts and opens the index, ready for you to add or edit
records
To duplicate a subheading as a main
heading:
If you type a heading followed by a
subheading, you can turn that subheading into a new heading in its own
right: Place the marquee over any cell and press Control + Alt + P (note
that there is no Edit menu item for this command).
To duplicate a main heading as a
subheading:
If you type a main heading, you can turn
that main heading into a subheading of a new main heading: Press Control + P
(or choose Edit > Duplicate & Swap). The marquee will be over the new blank
main heading ready for you to start typing.
In version 5 if you needed to have the
initial letter of all main headings capitalized you used the AutoCapitalize
feature, which capitalized initials as you typed.
In version 6, in addition to
AutoCapitalize you now have the option of setting SKY Index to capitalize
initials at the formatting stage instead of at the data entry stage. I much
prefer this way, because it gives me the option of changing my mind (or more
likely the editor changing his/her mind) part-way through, without having to
worry about the capitalization of proper names.
- In the Index Options dialogue, click the Fonts tab.
- In the top row (marked "Applies to") make sure the
radio button next to "Main" has a dot in it.
- In the bottom left of the box is an area headed
"Attributes". Click "Init. Caps" to place a tick in the checkbox.
- Click OK. You'll notice that whereas the main
headings in the Entry grid display exactly as you typed them, the initial
letters are capitalized in the Preview pane.
But what happens when you enter
cross-references? If you type a capital initial after "see" or "see also",
the AutoComplete feature won't kick in, right? Wrong.
- In the Data Entry Options dialogue, click the
AutoComplete tab.
- Click "Ignore Case" to place a tick in the checkbox.
- Click OK. Now when you type a capital initial after
"see" or "see also", SKY Index will complete the term for you with a
capital initial, whether or not you typed the original term with a capital
initial.
Many clients specify that they want "see
also" cross-references to appear as subheadings, as either the first or the
last. You set this option in the Cross-references tab of Index Options. In
the Placement row of the See also column choose "Top" or "Bottom", and click
the "Preview" button to see how it will look.
The example in the Preview box is:
grapes, 4-10 see also fruit green, 5 red, 7 or grapes, 4-10 green, 5 red, 7
see also fruit (Let's ignore for the moment the wisdom of making references
from the specific to the general.)
But occasionally you will want to make a
"see also" cross-reference from a heading that has no subheadings. Normally
it would look like this: fruit, 20-25 see also grapes
Some clients specify that if there are
no subheadings attached to a heading, then the cross-reference must appear
on the same line as the heading, either before the locators or after them.
This may also be your preference even if a client does not specify it. For
example: fruit, 20-25. See also grapes or fruit (see also grapes), 20-25
How do you do this?
At the bottom of the Cross-references
tab is a section called "Merge orphans to". By default it is set at "Don't".
To get the cross-references to appear before the locators in such cases,
choose "First"; or to appear after the locators, choose "Last". Enter any
punctuation and/or parentheses in the "Prefix" and "Suffix" boxes below.
There is no example of an orphan cross-reference in the Preview, so you'll
have to check such entries in the index itself.
Using this strategy you can easily
attain a format like: fruit (see also grapes), 20-25 grapes, 4-10 see also
fruit green, 5 red, 7
The Edit menu in Version 6 contains many
new functions. Listed below are the functions new since the version 5.1.
You can find explanations of by pointing
to the menu item and pressing the F1 key.
Note that some of these functions don't
work if you have set the sorting option to "Sort this heading by page".
Instead, you get an explanatory message.
COLLECT PAGES (Ctrl+Alt+C) and PASTE
PAGES (Ctrl+Alt+V) These functions allow you to
copy all the page reference from one index entry to another.
For example, you may want to double-post
an entry that already has a number of page references. Let's say you already
have dog breeding 13, 17, 21-29, 40-43 and you want to double-post it at
breeding dogs 13, 17, 21-29, 40-43 In version 5.1 it was a messy business:
either you had to retype the page references; or you could duplicate the
records, group them, and overtype the heading. Now all you need to do is
this:
-
Click anywhere on any of the
records for "dog breeding"
-
Choose Edit > Collect Pages (or
press Ctrl+Alt+C)
-
Append a new record and type
"breeding dogs"
-
Choose Edit > Paste Pages (or
press Ctrl+Alt+P)
UNDELETE,
MARK, and UNMARK I have already explained these in earlier
postings.
SELECT HEADING (Ctrl+H)
Use this to select all the records for an entry at any heading level you
choose. For example, to select all the records for a main heading, click the
main heading for any of the records with that heading and choose Edit >
Select Heading (or press Ctrl+H). Or to select all the records for a
particular subheading of a main heading, click the Sub1 for any of the
records and press Ctrl+H.
The online help has this to say:
Assume you have the
following set of entries (ignoring locators):
bicycles
buying
maintenance
repairs
and you want to create the following entries:
cars
buying
maintenance
repairs
Simply put the grid
marquee over the main heading of any record that has the main heading
'bicycles' and press <Ctrl><H>. Then duplicate entries by choosing
Edit|Duplicate, and group the entries by choosing View|Grouped. Finally,
change any one of the 'bicycles' main headings to 'cars' and press
<Ctrl><Alt><Enter> to propagate the edit through the entire group.
DUPLICATE ENTRY (Ctrl+Q)
This function selects all the records for an entry and then duplicates
them. In effect, it's really a "shortcut shortcut" -- instead of choosing
Edit > Select then Edit > Duplicate (or pressing Ctrl+Space then Ctrl+D),
you now just select Edit > Duplicate Entry (or press Ctrl+Q).
DUPLICATE HEADING (Ctrl+F8)
This is another "shortcut shortcut". It's the equivalent of choosing Edit >
Select Heading followed by Edit > Duplicate followed by View > Grouped (or
pressing Ctrl+H then Ctrl+D then Shift+F6).
Have another look at the example above
for duplicating the set of entries for "bicycles" under "cars". Instead of
pressing Ctrl+H, then duplicating the entries and finally grouping them as
described above, just press Ctrl+F8.
COMBINE (Ctrl+F7)
This is exactly the same as "Promote", except that instead of inserting a
comma (or whatever Promote separator you have specified) SKY Index simply
inserts a space. Use it in the same way as Promote: place the cursor in or
the marquee over the right-hand cell of the two cells you want to join, and
choose Edit > Combine or press Ctrl+F7. Like Promote, you can also use
Combine with several records at once: select the records and choose Edit >
Combine or press Ctrl+F7: a box pops up asking you which heading level you
want to combine.
Why do we need this in addition to
Promote? In many cases a subheading can be better combined with its heading
as natural language rather than by retaining the hierarchical look. For
example, we may have assigned "safety : training". If we Promote the
subheading, we create a new heading "safety, training". In version 5.1, if
we wanted the new heading to read "safety training" instead, we had to press
F2 and edit the comma out. But by using Combine we immediately create a new
heading "safety training".
SHIFT RIGHT (Ctrl+Alt+F6)
This is just like the familiar Shift Left command, except that everything is
shifted right instead. Place your cursor in or marquee over *any* cell in
the record you want to shift right and choose Edit > Shift Right, press
Ctrl+Alt+F6, or click the "Shift Cells Right" speedbutton icon (third from
the right-hand end of the speedbutton toolbar); a dialogue box asks you to
select the level of heading you want to shift. The left-most cell is left
blank, with the marquee positioned over it ready for you to begin typing.
You can use Shift Right with a single
record or several records at once.
Note that Shift Left, which in Version
5.1 was invoked by pressing Shift+F1, is now Ctrl+Alt+F5. If you press
Shift+F1 in version 6, nothing happens.
SHIFT LEFT TO MAIN (Ctrl+Alt+5)
This works like Shift Left, except that it shifts the contents of a cell at
any subheading level to the Main cell, deleting any higher levels.
Beware! You must select the entire
record for this function to work. If you select only one cell, the contents
of all cells are obliterated!
I hope that these explanations will
tempt you exploit Version 6's power to the full. Or if you haven't upgraded
yet, I hope they will help persuade you to do so.
When you install version 6, the American
spelling dictionary is installed by default. If you live in a country that
does not use US spelling, you can install the UK dictionary instead.
-
Choose Options > Program Options
-
Click the File Locations tab
-
Click the arrow in the dropdown
box at the bottom of the dialogue labeled Main Dictionary
-
Choose vssp_be.dct
-
Click OK.
As well as accepting British spellings,
this dictionary still accepts American spellings, so don't rely on it for an
index you are converting for an overseas edition. Note also that it rejects
words ending in -ise and -isation, preferred by some British publishing
houses, and the norm in Australia. As it is not possible to edit the
so-called "main" dictionaries, you will need to add such words to your user
dictionary. (I'm not familiar with the spelling conventions in Canada and
other English-speaking countries, so I can't say how well they are served.)
Those of you who are members of Index-L
will have read the thread on alternatives to the comma or the space between
an index heading and its locators. One of the suggested alternatives was the
ellipsis. An example from a published legal index was provided:
REMEDIES
Failure to bargain
Back pay...15.07[2]; 16.02[3]
Status quo ante...15.07[3]; 16.02[3]
Strikes, illegal
Damages...6.03[1] et seq.
Generally...5.07
SENIORITY
Absenteeism caused by...1.09[3]
How do you get the ellipsis character?
You don't insert three dots, that's for sure -- otherwise a line break could
occur between the dots, which would be most confusing.
Open the Index Options dialogue box and
click the Locators tab. In the Locators--Leader textbox delete whatever is
there. Holding down the Alt key, type 0133 on the numeric keypad, and
release the Alt key. A vertical black block will appear in the textbox.
Click OK and check the Preview pane. |
