Indexes in ebooks are startlingly unused at this point in ebook development. To answer this need, the American Society for Indexing has focused on educating and creating standards for indexes in ebooks. The vision is that search in ebooks can integrate with indexing, and that the indexing can inform the search, making it better and more productive. ASI feels that the user should be able to browse the index when needed, and that a dead chapter that looks like an index in the back of an ebook does no one any good.<\/p>\n
For indexers, the priority is to get locations within the text hyperlinked to index entries. The work requires developing the index for both print and ebook use, and then coding, which must be created and inserted into the book\u2019s files. The critical piece is to have anchor point codes in the ebook\u2019s files before compilation, so that the index has landing points for each entry. This embedding\/linking can be accomplished:<\/p>\n
Anchor points (codes) for the links must be present in the publisher\u2019s files and available for the indexer\u2019s reference and use, either in the live files (the \u201chot potato\u201d files), or copies of the live files that the indexer just refers to and doesn\u2019t change. InDesign allows the indexer to ignore the coding aspect, and just embed index entries. Other processes that do not use InDesign mean the indexer faces heavier coding issues and knowledge requirements.<\/p>\n
It is important for indexers to understand the process of embedding indexes and which tools or macros work with all the differing book layout software packages publishers use. Reviewing the Matrix tables by Glenda Browne, David Ream, Pilar Wyman and Jan Wright will give indexers the overview of the variety of tools and options to use:<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also good for indexers to have familiarity with the International Digital Publishing Forum EPUB 3.01 Indexes Working Group Specification<\/a>.<\/p>\n When taking on an ebook project, it is critical for the indexer to know more about the project than the usual back-of-the-book index project. Ask the client some questions to get perspective on their process and their desired outcomes:<\/p>\n With this information from the client, go to the Matrix and review the options for the client\u2019s software and needs. Some projects will be easy: for example, InDesign embedded indexes translate directly to ebook indexes, so the indexer needs to only InDesign knowledge to embed the entries. Other client tools and processes will be harder, and require macros, workarounds or special tools to activate the links. An example of a harder process would be an ebook published using Microsoft Word and Amazon’s CreateSpace, which would require embedding anchor points in the Word files and hyperlinking the index, as well as a practice run to see what CreateSpace does with the files.<\/p>\n Knowing which tools and software are part of the client’s process is critical, so that the indexer can evaluate when to create the indexing, and how to link the indexing.<\/p>\n Specifications:<\/em><\/p>\n International Digital Publishing Forum EPUB 3.01 Indexes Working Group Specification<\/a><\/p>\n General Information:<\/em><\/p>\n Guide to Working with Clients:<\/em><\/p>\n Tools and Technology<\/em><\/p>\n The Matrix:<\/p>\n InDesign tools<\/p>\n Word tools<\/p>\n HTML tools<\/p>\n XML editors<\/p>\n PDF tools<\/p>\n Text comparison tools<\/p>\n The content of this page was contibuted by Jan Wright.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Indexes in ebooks are startlingly unused at this point in ebook development. To answer this need, the American Society for Indexing has focused on educating and creating standards for indexes in ebooks. The vision is that search in ebooks can integrate with indexing, and that the indexing can inform the search, making it better and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":98,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-341","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digital-publications-indexing.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digital-publications-indexing.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digital-publications-indexing.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digital-publications-indexing.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digital-publications-indexing.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/digital-publications-indexing.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/341\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":687,"href":"https:\/\/digital-publications-indexing.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/341\/revisions\/687"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digital-publications-indexing.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/98"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digital-publications-indexing.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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