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• • May 19, 2010 at 4:23 pm #55769
    Theunis De Jong

    Member

    I have a huge book under construction — about 700 pages of text. That's so large that ID started to crack at the seams (double-click … wait for it, wait for it … yes! I selected a word!), and I decided to split up the entire thing into its component chapters. Easy said & done, now I have 53 separate documents, linked together into a Book.

    But — now the Index function doesn't work anymore! I get random page numbers left out, and if I check the relevant chapter in its own file, the references are all there; a mini-index of that chapter on itself works fine. I can clearly spot the missing pages in the overall index because the comma “between” is still there.

    I have seen it mentioned before, but this is the first time I see it happen before my very own eyes. Has this ever been resolved by Adobe? If not, shouldn't it get fixed pronto, rather than discussing what more Flash functions to add in CS6?

    Of course it's not a real biggie for me. I have been tinkering with javascripts to insert all entries at the correct places and then double-check if they were all there. For me it's a snap to re-write those scripts to “manually” generate a correct index, sorted and all. But it's … absurd … the function just does not work.

  • May 19, 2010 at 4:55 pm #55773
    David Blatner

    Keymaster

    Yes, I would love to see in Adobe's marketing materials: “NEW! EXCITING NEW FEATURE: Index feature revamped to finally work well.”

    I don't know why you'd be having problems like that, but I guess it doesn't surprise me too much. I think Marc Autret's indexing scripts are often better. Sigh. Maybe Adobe will revisit indexing in CS6… we can, at least, dream.

  • May 20, 2010 at 5:26 am #55779
    Theunis De Jong

    Member

    Apparently, none of the “entire range of our user base” (quoth Michael Ninness) are using indexes :-(

    Oh — and I said

    For me it's a snap to re-write those scripts to “manually” generate a correct index, sorted and all.

    … well … Besides being +700 pp., it's also about Eastern European writers. After I finally had generated a correct index, with all the right page numbers in the right order (and even concatenated ranges like “11,12,13” into “11-13” — another trick that might leave Adobe engineers baffled by my ingenuity) … entries such as “?apek, Karel” (the Czech playwright that coined the term “robot” for a 'mechanical worker') appeared at the very end of the index. Javascript is not good at Unicode sorting …

    So I had to implement on-the-fly removing of accents as well as a custom “sort-by” … But I think I got it, after several hours of frantic trying. There are still a few weird cases but at least everything seems to be there.

  • May 22, 2010 at 12:09 am #55813
    Colin Flashman

    Member

    But — now the Index function doesn't work anymore! I get random page numbers left out, and if I check the relevant chapter in its own file, the references are all there; a mini-index of that chapter on itself works fine. I can clearly spot the missing pages in the overall index because the comma “between” is still there.

    oh please no! i have a customer who, with my help, has set up a 300pg textbook in a similar fashion to jongware (indesign files into an indesign book file) and we're just at the indexing stage… don't tell me that the software is buggy!

    i must admit that persuading my customer to upgrade from CS2 to CS4 has left me with egg on my face as:

    1) it was installed on windows 7 and a rarely known bug about screen resolution can play games with trying to select items in indesign's dialog boxes and panels, causing us to lose a week of production until we worked out the solution;

    2) the table styles don't work as well as they should and often don't behave (this is the abridged explanation of the problem)

    3) now it looks like the index will be problematic. i have several scripts i can use to make the index in other ways BUT why should i have to? the software is meant to work.

    look, indesign does plenty of the things i need it to do and some things that it doesn't do out of the box may be able to be scripted. sometimes there are bugs/glitches which have workarounds, but the index issue is a total progress stopper and has to be resolved by Adobe.

  • May 22, 2010 at 10:09 am #55815
    Theunis De Jong

    Member

    Colly, no need to despair (yet). It seems the buggy Index is strongly linked to the Book function — InDesign “just” forgets to update the index per each file, it seems. I read on another forum it should be possible to manually update the index in each file, to force all index entries to be current when the Index Book function gets activated.

    I don't have my 50 MB/53 files with me — it's a weekend! — but I'll try that for sure. Shame about the work day I spend writing scripts … Perhaps I can send Adobe a bill for the hours spend debugging.

    The Javascript Help lists “update” under “Index”, but with this rather puzzling note:

    Updates the index preview pane. Note: Does not update the index.

    — so it might be scriptable to semi-automatically update all, or it might not.

  • March 15, 2011 at 9:54 pm #58990
    Anonymous

    Inactive

    Has this issue been resolved with CS5? I'm working on a book document as well, and I fear I will meet the same problem.

  • March 16, 2011 at 11:37 am #58993
    meanwhile

    Member

    Is this connected to my problem of trying to make a table of contents out of chapter headings (naturally…duuhhh) that appear (naturally..duhh) on master page items called section markers? It's driving me nuts. Any ideas please?

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