Index to Text: Convert Page References to Text Tags

These scripts are part of the Indexes and Concordances collection. See the full collection here. 

The Index to Text script (index-to-text.jsx) converts all page references in a document to text tags of the form <ix>dog</ix> and inserts these where the page reference occurs in the text. This is usually right before the first character of the indexed word, so that you end up with e.g.

<ix>dog</ix>

where the tag shown in red is inserted before the text occurrence dog, shown in black.

Subtopics

Any subtopics are separated from the main topic and other subtopics by #. Example: all page references to the topic dog with subtopic collie which itself has a subtopic border collie are replaced with the text string <ix>dog#collie#border collie</ix>. If a page reference to this topic chain occurred at the phrase border collie in the text, you would see this:

<ix>dog#collie#border collie</ix>

After converting all page references, all topics are deleted and the index is cleared.

Sort order

If a topic has a sort order defined, the sort order is suffixed to the topic’s name separated by @. For example, the topic \target with sort order targetis inserted as follows:

<ix>\target@target</ix>

Other properties

The remaining properties (page-reference type, style override, and limit) are added to the string, separated by %%. Example:

dog%%FOR_NEXT_N_PAGES~~Principal~~4%%

where FOR_NEXT_N_PAGES is the page-reference type, Principal is the name of the number style override, and 4 is the page count.

Use

The script has no interface; just run it. You could change the codes that the script expects with other codes.

Build or rebuild index from tags

The index can be rebuilt later using the Index Rebuild script (index-rebuild.jsx).

Problem entries

Problem entries are skipped so that their markers stay in the text. After running the script, if there were any errors an alert is shown. Check the index panel and try to fix the problematic entries.

Use

The scripts have no interface; just run it.

Version history

10 Aug. 2023: Added support for page reference type, style override, and limit.

11 July 2018: Improved error handling.

26 February 2016: Sort orders are now added to the text tag.

May 2009: First posted.

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