IndexGofer - A Companion

This document is a set of brief notes to accompany IndexGofer's WorkFlow diagram. More details about each step appear in the IndexGofer Guide. In particular, there is much to be done before engaging in the WorkFlow Diagram. See Getting Ready.

This document is a companion to using IndexGofer. When you click a document icon on the IndexGofer workflow diagram, this document is opened to the corresponding section. Each section contains instructions on using the associated program and additional Background information you may need to understand.

WRITE ME

Choosing / Creating the Index Style

xxx

First choose a basic style. Press the little triangle to see the options and their samples.

 
 
 
main term, 12, 13; subterm, 123-5
maintenance, 5, 6; See also repairs

 

Paginating and Extracting an HTML

I.G.Details

If paginator cannot be made to work, or if the proofs are not even in .pdf, you can fall back to plain text. Extract the text however you can. For .pdf files this means selecting text and typing control-C. Then edit the text to insert page number tags. Before each page insert a line containing "$@nnn", where nnn is the page number. Save this file as pages.txt. Paginator will read from this page and produce pages.html

Processing the PDF File from the Publisher

◆ Check the Sample PDF

If your publisher sends a sample .pdf file, put it in your project folder. Click it in this list.

(List of .pdf files in project folder)

You should see a page of the document in the Paginator application:

SaveAs dialog box from MS windows

If the text is not visible, there may be an error message to explain the problem. Possibly the file is encrypted or locked. Negotiation with the publisher may help. If the file cannot be read, you may have a similar problem when your own proofs arrive. There is a work-around that will add an hour or two.

◆ Choose index entries for each page

This is it. Time to populate the index. 

IndexGofer will show you a scrolled document with all the pages of each chapter:

IndexGofer main window with areas marked

The yellow area lists the terms that have been selected for that page. In the page text, phrases in blue have automatically generated phrases. Phrases in red are linked to several phrases, as showon at the bottom of the terms list window:

For each chapter__.txt, processing produces a chapter__-index.txt file. You need to process every page, but IndexGofer does not keep track of which pages you have processed. This table shows your chapters and the -index files that have been produced.

Click a chapter__.txt file in the table to begin or resume processing it for index entries.

Chapter file Resulting -index file
(List of chapter__.txt and chapter__-index.txt files.)

To open the help window, click in the IndexGofer window and type F1.

GOAL: This task is complete when have checked every page of every chapter__.txt. IndexGofer will then have created a chapter__-index.txt for every chapter.

Assigning Terms to Pages

Create Index Entries for a Chapter

Once the IndexGofer window is open, select from the File menu the option for Open Chapter. Some terms will be automatically added to pages because trigger phrases appear on those pages. You may delete these entries. To add other entries, double click on a term in a Terms List window.

IndexGofer will automatically save your work every few minutes and when you exit. To be safe, you can choose the "Save" item from the File menu or type control-S.

PAGINATE

◆ Paginate the text

To do its work, IndexGofer needs a file where the text of each page is preceded by a marker giving the page number. A marker is a line beginning "$@" and followed by the page number. If possible, the markered text file is generated from a PDF file sent by the publisher. Otherwise, markers must be inserted in a text version of the book, as described in Inserting Page Number.

When the PDF arrives, place a copy in your project folder. (I recommend keeping the original pristine in a separate folder reserved solely for source material.) Paginating text from the PDF is the task of the Paginator tool. To start paginator, click the name of a PDF file in this list.

(List of .pdf files in project folder)

You will see a window like this, with empty page number cells on the left, page images on the right, and some tools between.

SaveAs dialog box from MS windows

To assign a number to the visible page, type the number into the "Pg #" box. Usually a book begins with front-matter pages numbered in lower case Roman numerals. So click in the top-left page number cell and type an "i" in the "Pg #" box. This amuses me because Paginator immediately numbers all pages in Roman numerals. Now click page number cells until you find a body page and then click on preceding pages to select the one that should be numbered "1"; sometimes it is a blank page. Type "1" into the "Pg #" box. Now, in the best case, your have numbered all the pages. Click pages near the end to be sure the number sequence has not been besmirched with unnumbered pages. (It has happened.)  (For even more amusement, you can have Paginator number the pages in Arabic numerals. Type control-alt-digit for each.)

By default, Paginator will extract all the text on every page, including headers and footers. To have it extract just the text, drag the edges of the rectangle named "text" until it surrounds the portion of the page that contains the text. (You can also drag the "header" rectangle to surround the page header. Paginator will parse out the page numbers and check them against your manually set numbers.)

When you extract the text, you need only those pages that have text you will index. You can skip pages that contain the table of contents, tables, figures, and the references section. To do so, select the page numbers and click the Skip Pages button. To select multiple consecutive pages, click the first number and shift-click the last. To select scattered pages, contol-click each.

While choosing index terms for pages, you may want to work on the entire manuscript or you may want to break it up and work on one chapter or section at a time. To create a separate file starting at a given page, select that page and click the "Chap. Name" box. Chapter files are numbered sequentially: chapter0.txt, chapter1.txt, ...

All your work must be done in one session. When you quit, you will be prompted to see if you want to extract chapters according to what you have done.

Your project folder has these chapter files with page markers::
(List of chapter__.txt files with page markers)

Other kinds of numbers

I some cases you want to have index entries refer to figures, tables, or notes. Publisher guidelines usually want these in italic, bold, or the form 123n4 (for note 4 on page 123). Paginator does not support these forms, but they they can be used. Please refer to Note Numbers for details of including such numbers in your chapter__.txt files.
GOAL: This task is complete when every chapter__.txt file contains page marker lines: $@number.

 

Editing the Index Terms

◆ Construct and edit the terms list

As you scan pages of your text to assign index terms, you will choose from the list in file indexterms.txt; in the previous step you constructed the first version and will make additions in later steps. The list will need work for many reasons, not least because reviewing it in another form will suggest changes. To review and edit the list, click:

The terms editor has its own help file; here are some highlights:

  • To search for a main term, type it into the box at the top.
  • To insert a main term, type it into the box at top and click the Add Term button.
  • Phrases, terms, and subterms can be edited by double clicking thme..
  • To add an additional phrase click the green arrow at the left.
  • To add a subterm, click the middle green arrow.
  • To delete a row, click the red-circled X. A term cannot be deleted until it has no indented rows below it.
  • SEE terms are added by choosing the Edit menu entry, Add Referer
  • Control-Z undoes, Control-Y redoes the most recently undone action.
  • Type control-S to save your work. Your work is also saved when the editor terminates, for whatever reason.
Goal: This task is at least started when you have indexterms.txt.

Indexing with IndexGofer means assigning index terms as entries for each page. Cenral to this task is the list of index terms that can be assigned. This list is kept in the project directory as file indexterms.txt, as described in the Admin guide.

The project directory must have a file indexterms.txt. The format is described in the Admin Guide; it may be edited with any text-oriented editor. However, IndexGofer now offers TermsEditor for creating and revising indexterms.txt.

tems editor windowThe TermsEditor window, at right, has, top-to-bottom, menu bar, the Find / Create line, the table of index terms, and a message line.

Typing into the Find/Create box causes the table to scroll to the term begining with the current string. Click the Add Term button to add a new main term with the name in the Find/Create box.

Editing Cells

"Opening" a cell - When you click on a cell in one of the text columns, it "opens" for editing; a box surrounds it and the background is white. You can edit text in an open cell with all the usual text editing operations: mouse selection, text typing, backspace, and all the others. The cell is closed by typing enter or clicking elsewhere.

If a cell is selected, but not open, it can be opened by clicking or by typing F2.

Unscrolling - If the contents of a cell are changed, it is resorted to its new alphabetic location in the table. This often scrolls the table. To return to the previous scroll position, type alt-left arrow. (This same keystroke is used in browsers for going back to the previous page.)

Closing cells - An open cell can be closed by typing ENTER.

If a cell is open, and has changed in value, no other operation can be done until the cell is closed. Attempting another operation will close the cell, but not do the operation. To remind you that a cell has closed, every time a cell closes a small whoosh is sounded. So if you try to do an operation and hear a whosh, you will know the operation did not get done.

Special keystrokes

A number of special key strokes are defined.

Arrow keys - If no cell is open, the arrow keys will move the selection from one cell to the next. In an open cell the arrows move the cursor through the text.

ENTER - If a cell is open, ENTER will close it. If no cell is open, and a non-text (insert or delete) column is selected, the ENTER key will perform the insert or delete operation dictated by the column.

F2 - Open cell - If a cell is selected and not open, F2 will open it. (This is the same as in Excel.)

^Z  - Undo - Same as the Undo operation in the Edit menu.

^Y - Redo - Same as the Redo operation in the Edit menu.

^N - Convert name - Same as the Convert Name operation in the Edit menu.

^S - Save - Same as the Save operation in the File menu.

F1 - Help - Same as the Show Help operation in the Help menu. (Use the Browse User's Guide option in the Help menu to open this Guide.)

table of how to type accents Typing accented characters

For an accented letter, hold the control key and type the prefix, release control and type the letter. Similarly for upper case. See the table to the right.

On US keyboards, quote is an upper case apostrophe, tilde is an upper case grave, and circumflex is an upper case 6.

The TermsEditor windowColumns

Here are the columns of the table.

4 Index Terms. A main term is unindented or ditto marks to repeated the term on the line above it. A subterm is indent and prefixed with a colon. A "referer" term is indented and surrounded with (^ and ). Referer terms are not available to be assigned as entries to pages. Instead, when the index is generated there will be an entry for the referer. Its contents will be "See" followed by the parent main term.

Click on an item in column 4 and it is opened for editing. If the text is revised, the term will be moved in the table to its proper alphabetic position.

A word about acronyms - If a main term has an acronym, as in

Gross State Product (GSP)

then a referer from the acronym to the term is automatically generated. The acronym will not appear in the termslist window, but will appear in the generated index.

2 Trigger phrases. When a page is made "current", the background for its entries becomes yellow. At the same time the page text is scanned to see if it has any trigger phrases in terms newly defined since the page was last scanned. When a trigger phrase is found, the phrase in the text is colored. If the trigger applies to only one term, the phrase is colored blue and the term is added to the pages entries. If more than one term applies, the phrase is colored red, but no entries are added.

1 "Add phrase" arrow. Clicking an arrow in the left column causes an additional instance of the term to be added and its phjrase is opened to type in a phrase. (Until a phrase is typed in, the phrase internally has the value "~~~".)

3 "Add subterm arrow. Click an arrow in the third column and a new subterm line is added to the main term and opened for editing. (Until a subterm is entered, the subterm internally has the value "~~~".)

5 Clicking a red X in the fifth column will the term on that line. Main terms can only be deleted if they have no subterms.

Referers are added in column 4 with the AddReferer menu item. It is in the Edit menu in the menu bar and also on a popup. A referer line is added and opened for editing. (Until a referer is entered, it internally has the value "~~~".)

Menus

In the screen shots, one letter is underlined in each row. This is the menu item's "mnemonic key". Typing that key while the menu is visible will perform that menu item.

Terms Editor File menu

File menu

Save Saves the terms to indexterms.txt. (This will be done automatically when switching back to IndexGofer.)

Scan for Proper Nouns ...Prompts for the name of a .txt file and scans it for proper nouns, adding those found to the terms table. See Getting Ready.

Read Author's List ... Prompts for the name of a file with one name per line and addds the names to the terms table. See Getting Ready.

Exit Saves the terms list and closes the IndexGofer and TermsEditor applications.

Terms Editor File menuEdit menu

Undo xxx Reverses the effect of the last operation. The xxx names the sort of operation. Major operations like Scan for Proper Nouns and Read Authors List canot be undone.

Redo xxx If an operation has been unone, this operation does it again. A single operatno can be Undo-ed and Redo-ed any number of times, but the number of saved operations is no more than 25.

Delete Term The current row is deleted. Terms canot be deleted until all subterms and referers have been deleted.

Add Phrase A new row is inserted for the term on the current line. The phrase column is blank and opened for editing.

Add Subterm A new row is inserted below the current line. The term field is opened as a subterm (with a leading colon.)

Add Referer A enw row is inserted below the current row and its term field is opened as a referrer, inside (^ and ).

Convert Name The term field is modified as though it were a name in form first-middle-last. The new version is in form last-comma-first-middle.That is, the last full word is moved to the front and a comma is placed after it. Typing control-N has the same effect.

Terms Editor File menu

Help menu

Show Help Opens the Context Help window. As you move the mouse over the Terms Editor window, the Context Help window is scrolled to a description of the item under the mouse. To scroll in the Concext Help window, type the F1 key; it jumps the mouse to the Context Help window with out intervening mouse motion. Then you can scroll within the Context Help window to read descriptions.

Browse User's Guide Opens your local browser showing your local copy of the IndexGofer User's Guide. (If the local copy downloaded with InstallIndexGofer is not available, the website copy will be shown.)

About IndexGofer Displays a small dialog box with the IndexGofer versino number, the current directory, and the current file.

Switch to IndexGofer button

Clicking the Switch to IndexGofer button closes the table and returns to viewing pages and their index entries. At this time, the index terms are written to their file, indexterms.txt. The terms are also scaned for consistency; redundant terms are deleted and necessary terms are added. Examples of necessary terms include the main term for a subterm or a mnemonic. The design of the TermsEditor makes it unlikely that any such modifications are needed.

 

◆ Choose index entries for each page

This is it. Time to populate the index. 

IndexGofer will show you a scrolled document with all the pages of each chapter:

IndexGofer main window with areas marked

The yellow area lists the terms that have been selected for that page. In the page text, phrases in blue have automatically generated phrases. Phrases in red are linked to several phrases, as showon at the bottom of the terms list window:

For each chapter__.txt, processing produces a chapter__-index.txt file. You need to process every page, but IndexGofer does not keep track of which pages you have processed. This table shows your chapters and the -index files that have been produced.

Click a chapter__.txt file in the table to begin or resume processing it for index entries.

Chapter file Resulting -index file
(List of chapter__.txt and chapter__-index.txt files.)

To open the help window, click in the IndexGofer window and type F1.

GOAL: This task is complete when have checked every page of every chapter__.txt. IndexGofer will then have created a chapter__-index.txt for every chapter.

Choose Terms for Each Page  
${help.pages.list.TDbody} The main IndexGofer window names the current file and directory in the title bar.
The main IndexGofer window names the current file and directory in the title bar. There follows three rows: menu bar, the pades table, and a message line at the bottom.
the IndexGofer main window

The three columns of the pages table are the page number, the contents of the page, and the index terms that have been selected for that page. As the page was read in, IndexGofer scanned it for trigger phrases (as given in indexterms.txt). In the image above, the phrases "race to the bottom" and "slavery" resulted in index entries of the same. "Interstate competition" and "Levi" resulted in "labor costs, state" subhead "interstate competition" and "Levi, Margaret." The term United States of America was added with the Add Entry command. The phrase "labor costs" is red because that phrase is the trigger for two different index terms. Neither was automatically listed, so you need to review red phrases to see if any index terms should be added for that page. Selecting the entire red phrase will make the Index Terms window scroll to the alphabetically first term in the Index Terms window. Selecting a blue phrase will cause the selection to jump to the index entry made for that term.

The index entries on the "active" page are hi-lit in yellow. Additions and removal of index entries occur there. When you scroll the text, IndexGofer makes one of the visible pages active and colors its entries section in yellow.As the text is scrolling you will see empty entry areas. That is because the text is not scanned for trigger phrases until the page is made active (and thus has a yellow area).

Entering Accented Characters

Letters for European alphabets can be entered with prefix control characters. For example, type control-apostrophe and the letter a to enter á (a-acute). The supported letters are these

${tools.accents.htm}

Command Buttons

The menu bar has four buttons for the commands of IndexGofer:.

Rescanning is usuaully unnecessary. Every time a page is made active it is scaned for terms that have been added since the last time the page entries were modified. However, once an entry has been deleted for a page the only way to get it back is by selecting the entry in a terms window and using the Add Entry button.

Commands can be invoked from menus, and also from the keyboard:

Command
Keystrokes
Add Entry

Insert or Control-a
or double-click on term in Index Terms window

Remove Entry
Delete or Control-d
Create new index term ...
Control-n
Save entries
Control-s

With Create new index term, you can add a new term or add a crossreference. For adding a term you will see three fields:
Adding an index term
The trigger phrase is one or more words; when a page is scanned, IndexGofer looks for these phrases. If one is found, its term is added to the entries for the page. The index entry is the main heading field together with the optional sub heading field. A new term is rejected if all three fields exactly match those of an existing term. Oterwise the term is added at its alphabetic location in the Index Terms window and immediately inserted in the indexterms.txt file. It is not added to the active page; to do os, type the INSERT key.

Clicking the "Cross reference" tab at the top of the dialog box brings up the fields for entering a cross reference:
Four fields for entering a cross-reference: the term where the reference will appear and the term it refers to.
The "for nickname" term is the term in the index where this cross reference will appear; The "See ..." term is the one that is referred to. The "under" term might be NEA and the "See" term "National Education Association (NEA)" Then the index would have entries
National Education Association (NEA) 12, 20, 44
...
NEA. See National Education Association
(Note the special case for acronyms. The trailing instance of "(NEA)" is stripped from the entry for NEA, but appears in the other entry.)

The 'file' menu

The File Menu

Open Chapter - Prompts for a new chapter and opens it. The file must be a text file with extension .txt. Pages in the text must each be preceded with a line having $@xxx, where xxx is the page number. The directory for Chapter files is remembered from one editing session to the next.

Save Entries - For chapter xxx.txt, this command creates file xxx-index.txt and stores into it all the index entries. It remembers which entries you have deleted. The chapter is rescanned every time it becomes active, but deleted entries do not come back. Entries are saved automatically when you open another chapter, or you exit the program, or when a five minute timer fires.

Create Index ... - You are prompted with a list of all the ...-index.txt files in the current directory. When you click "Index in text" or "Index in html", the checked files are read, the entries are sorted, and an index is created in index.txt or index.html, respectively. The html file can be edited with Microsoft Word to convert it to some other format. Or with emacs to modify line endings conveniently.

New Terms Window - A new instance of the Index Terms window is opened. All such windows look and behave alike, except that they may be scrolled differently and each may have its own set of selected entries. The selection is visible only when the window has the input focus.

Exit - IndexGofer saves any entries. For filename.txt, entries are saved to filename-index.txt.  Entries are automatically saved when you switch to another file or exit the program.  They are also saved every five minutes,

The 'Entries' menu

The Entries Menu

Insert Term - D

Delete Term - D

New Term ... - D

Rescan Page - Dasd

asd

The 'file' menuThe Windows Menu

A- Displ

A- Displ

A- Displ

 

The 'file' menuThe Help Menu

Show Help - Brings up a window displaying the ContextHelp file. As the mouse moves across the IndexGofer windows, the help window scrolls to describe what is under the mouse. F1 will also raise the ContextHelp window. In addition, it jumps the mouse to that window without changing the main window; thus you can explore the Context help.

Enter demo mode - In demo mode, IndexGofer works on a single built-in file and set of index terms. Creating an index shows it on the screen instead of saving it to a file.  Things to try:

Choose menu item File/CreateIndex and either html or text.
See the nice index.
Click "shadow" at the bottom of the terms list window.
It turns blue.
Click on a page in the main window.
Its index entries turn yellow.
Click the Add Entry button at the top.
"shadow" gets added to the entries in the yellow area.
Choose File/CreateIndex again.
Now the index has an entry for "shadow" and a cross reference to it.

If you add "dark" as a term on some page(s), more cross references will appear. (Cross references do not appear unless the term they point at has associated entries.)

Browse User's Guide - asasdasd

About IndexGofer - Displays some mildly useful information, especially the current directory and file name. You should report the version number in error reports.

The bottom lines of the About window display the current directory and current file.

"Index Terms" Window

Available Index Terms window        Any term in the"Index Terms" window can be assigned to any page in the text.  Scroll through the list. Select a term. It turns blue. Click the Add Entry button, and that term becomes an entry for the current page. Select two or more consecutive terms. They get blue. Click the Add Entry button, and they all become entries for the page.

If you want a new term, use the Create new index term ... button. If you want another copy of the entire window, use New Terms Window in the File menu. The contents of the window are derived from indexterms.txt in the same directory as the open chapter.

 

◆ Shazam! The index appears

Click here to create your index.

Your index has been stored in the project folder as "index.html." It should also now be showing in your browser. You can edit index.html with MicroSoft Word to adapt it as you wish.

Goal: This task is complete when index.html exists.

That's it! Cheers and cupcakes to you.

If IndexGofer helped, tell a colleague.  And I'd be delighted to hear from you, good or bad.

Zweibieren@yahoo.com

Click here to create your index.

Your index has been stored in the project folder as "index.html." It should also now be showing in your browser. You can edit index.html with MicroSoft Word to adapt it as you wish.

Goal: This task is complete when index.html exists.

That's it! Cheers and cupcakes to you.

If IndexGofer helped, tell a colleague.  And I'd be delighted to hear from you, good or bad.

Zweibieren@yahoo.com

After terms have been chosen for each page, it is time to make the index. At the end of the WorkFlow document, click to "Create Index" button. File index.html will be created. The GenIndex program will have created styles embedded in the document, in a separate index.css file, or both. To view the generated index use your browser to visit the generated index.html.