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• • May 31, 2022 at 10:07 am #14366139
    James Lukens-Gable

    Participant

    I am looking for a way to create an index of names contained within a 200 page book, where the names appear as (First Name, Middle Initial, Last Name, Degrees) within the body copy of the file like this:
    Kelly Griffith, MD
    Terra A. Saxion, MD, PhD
    James H. Lukens-Gable, MD, MSc

    but when an Index is generated, in the Index would appear as (Last Name, First Name, Middle Initial, Degrees)
    Griffith, Kelly, MD, 1, 5
    Saxion, Terra A., MD, PhD, 2, 75
    Lukens-Gable, James H., MD, MSc, 3, 106

    I can get the Index to generate (Last Name, First Name, Middle Initial) but (Degrees) becomes a separate listing in the Index, even if I add a non-breaking space in between the comma after the Last Name and before the Degree. I am highlighting the text I want included in the Index, and use Shift+Option+Command+] (Mac OS).

    Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

  • May 31, 2022 at 10:43 am #14366140
    David Blatner

    Keymaster

    I had totally forgotten about that keyboard shortcut! That’s such a good one. But no, I don’t think there’s any way to customize how it works. It’s pretty simple. Normally, if I had to index stuff like this, I’d use Command-7 to add it to the index manually. Takes longer, though.

    I wonder if IndexMatic can do this? https://www.indiscripts.com/post/2018/03/indexmatic-quick-demo-last-name-first-name-queries

  • May 31, 2022 at 12:00 pm #14366141
    James Lukens-Gable

    Participant

    Hi David,

    Thank you for your quick response!

    If I may ask, how do you use Command-7 to add the Degrees to the Index manually?

  • May 31, 2022 at 12:18 pm #14366142
    David Blatner

    Keymaster

    You can select the name and title, press Cmd-7, then manually edit the “Topic” field to show: Griffith, Kelly, MD
    It takes longer because you have to edit each one.

    I just thought of another possible solution… Peter Kahrel has a script that converts character styled text into an index:
    https://creativepro.com/files/kahrel/indesign/index_charstyles.html
    That can also reverse names… but I don’t think it works with titles. I’m going to email him and ask if there’s any easy solution.

  • May 31, 2022 at 12:34 pm #14366143
    James Lukens-Gable

    Participant

    Thank you! In very deep appreciation and with sincere gratitude for you taking the time to explain that for me.

  • June 2, 2022 at 9:56 am #14366369
    David Blatner

    Keymaster

    Hi James… I reached out to Peter Kahrel, who very kindly wrote up a script that will do what you need! When you select text and run the script, it acts just like the Shift+Option+Command+] shortcut… but it includes the titles/suffixes properly!

    You can download it here: https://creativepro.com/downloads/index-topic-from-selected-text.jsx
    Here’s how to install scripts, if you need that: https://creativepro.com/how-to-install-a-script-in-indesign-that-you-found-in-a-forum-or-blog-post/
    If you have a lot of these to do, you can assign a shortcut to the script: https://creativepro.com/assigning-keyboard-shortcuts-scripts/

  • June 3, 2022 at 12:42 pm #14366434
    James Lukens-Gable

    Participant

    Wow. I am so amazed and thankful to both you and Peter — this script works perfectly, and will save so much time. I was resolved with the manual method of adding the degrees — which is not a bad solution — just time consuming. The CreativePro community rocks, and it is little things like this that are why I still love my job; I am learning something new most everyday and then freely sharing that information back out to folks.

    • June 3, 2022 at 2:25 pm #14366435
      David Blatner

      Keymaster

      Love it! I’m so glad we could help.

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