Indexing Research | Index | Indexing Services, Conversion Services, and CINDEX Indexing Software for Windows and Macintosh

Frequently Asked Questions (CINDEX™)
General Info | Windows/Mac

Sorting:

01. How to view entries in order of record number

02. Entries beginning with punctuation appear at the head of the index

03. Entries don't appear in sorted order

04. Articles and prepositions aren't ignored

05. Greek letters and symbols aren't sorted properly

Page References:

06. Page numbers don't appear in the correct order

07. Entering temporary page numbers in records

08. Correcting errors in converting temporary page numbers

Formatting:

09. Displaying headings in particular styles

10. Adding a head note to the index

11. Formatting index entries with a fixed number of characters on a line

12. Spacing between entries and page numbers is uneven

Preparing Work for the Editor/Publisher:

13. Preparing documents for Microsoft Word

14. Preparing documents for WordPerfect for Windows

15. Defining indents in Rich Text Format (RTF) documents

16. Fixing the number of characters per line in a file

17. Preparing ASCII text files

18. Checking files that contain formatted indexes

Files and Internet:

19. Backing up index documents

20. Exchanging index documents with other indexers

21. Opening indexes received as email attachments

SORTING

01. How can I produce a record order sort?
Under the View menu, you'll see an item named Sorted. Choosing this switches between sorted and unsorted view. Without the check mark in front of the menu item you'll see your index in record order sort.
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02. All of my entries that begin with quotation marks are sorting before the letter A. How do I make them appear in correct alphabetical order?
Choose Sort (from the Tools menu) and make sure that you've chosen either Word-by-Word or Letter-by-Letter alphabetizing, rather than 'Simple' alphabetizing. Simple alphabetizing recognizes the quotes at their face value, while word-by-word and letter-by-letter alphabetizing ignore will them (and other punctuation and symbols).
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03. I am using letter-by-letter sorting, but my index isn't alphabetized. My entries remain in the order in which I enter them, and each entry is displayed with a new group header letter.
You probably have have your view set to show entries in unsorted order. Check under the View menu that the item Sorted has a check mark next to it. If it doesn't, choose Sorted. That should correct your problem. (You can also check this at a glance, because CINDEX displays "Sorted" or "Unsorted" on the bar at the bottom of the screen.)
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04. I have asked CINDEX to ignore "the" when sorting the index, but it doesn't.
There are two possible reasons why "the" is not being ignored:

You are using Simple alphabetizing. CINDEX does not ignore articles or prepositions when you use "simple" alphabetizing. You must use word-by-word or letter-by-letter alphabetizing (choose Sort from the Tools menu).
Even if you are using word-by-word or letter-by-letter alphabetizing, CINDEX will ignore "the" only if it is the first word in a sub-heading, or sub-sub-heading. CINDEX does not ignore leading articles and prepositions in main headings. If you want CINDEX to ignore "The" as a leading word in a main heading, place the word to be ignored inside angle-brackets, as in
<The >Wind in the Willows.

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05. Why aren't Greek letters sorting properly?
CINDEX normally treats Greek letters (in the symbol font) as their Roman letter counterparts (for example, the letter w (omega) is the same as the letter w). To make CINDEX sort a Greek letter as something other than its Roman counterpart, place the corresponding letter beside it in braces. For example, to sort the Greek letter omega as 'o' you would place the letter 'o' beside it in braces, thus: {o}w. CINDEX uses text enclosed in braces when it alphabetizes entries, but hides that text when it displays or prints a formatted index.
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PAGE REFERENCES

06. When I view entries in Fully Formatted View my page numbers are disordered. They are OK in Draft view. What is happening?
In a draft or unformatted view of the index, CINDEX displays references exactly as you entered them in records. In a formatted view, CINDEX normally sorts a series of references so that they appear in ascending order (you control this behavior by choosing Page References from the Document menu). If CINDEX does not order references in the way you would wish, one of two things is probably happening.

You might have references whose components are separated by different forms of punctuation. CINDEX normally assumes that a comma separates one reference from the next. If you are using a comma to separate parts of a single reference, and some other character such as a semicolon to separate complete references, you must tell CINDEX what character you are using. To do this choose Reference Syntax from the Document menu.
If you have compound references containing letters and numbers, or even Roman numerals and month names, you will need to tell CINDEX how it should prioritize the different components. To do this choose Sort from the Tools menu, then under Character Priority on the Text tab, drag the items Letters, Numbers and Symbols to the positions that reflect the precedence you want (the one at the top of the list has highest precedence).

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07. I have to work with folioed, but unpaginated, pages for my next index. I know I can input the temporary pagination with an attached chapter number, using the construct 35%1 (meaning the first page of chapter 35), but how do I handle page spreads and do I need to put the chapter number before every single page number?
Input page spreads with the chapter number and % before the first part only, e.g., 35%3-6. However, each individual reference MUST have the chapter number and % in front of it (e.g., 35%4, 35%7, 35%10). To avoid constant re-keying of the 35%, you can place this sequence on a hot key, so that you need use only one keystroke.
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08. I've just used Alter References (Tools menu) to convert my temporary pagination to final form, and have discovered that entries for chapter 19 were altered twice. HELP!
You probably entered 9% to denote chapter 9 and 19% to denote chapter 19. When you set up to make adjustments for chapter 9 and specified a Matching Pattern of
9%
CINDEX would have altered references to pages in chapters 9, 19, 29, 39 etc. because it was looking to match any sequence of characters that contained 9%. You can correct the error by subtracting the offset you unintentionally added to references for chapter 19. Set the Matching Pattern to
19%
and set Adjustment to the negative of the number you originally added. To avoid this kind of problem when dealing with temporary pagination of chapter numbers with single and multiple digits, you should always use leading zeros to ensure a uniform number of digits preceding the % (e.g., 009%, 019%, 109%).
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FORMATTING

09. How can I display all main entries in boldface?
Go to the Document menu and choose Headings. This will display a box that contains a set of tabs. The tab for the main heading is in front. Here you'll see a button for Style. Click the Style button to bring up a box where you can choose Boldface (among other style attributes).
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10. How do I insert an introductory note into my index?
You create an index entry that contains the text of the note, then you make CINDEX place this at the head of the index. First be sure that your sort is set to letter-by-letter or word-by-word alphabetizing. Create an index entry (or entries) that contains the text of your introductory note. Each entry will contain information that forces its placement at the beginning of your index. If you want empty lines to follow the note, you will need to create entries with hidden text that you force into position after the note. For example, if you wanted the introduction to your index to look like this:

Index entries reference volume, then page.
For full information, please see individual entries in the index at the end of each volume.

Abacus, 12:8
Abracadabra, 6:7
. . . .

You would make a series of separate entries that in draft view looked like this (record numbers in blue are merely for illustration; do not type them in records):

1 { a}<Index entries reference volume, then page.>
2 { b}<For full information, please see individual entries in the index at the end of each volume.>
3 { c}< >
4 Abacus_12:8
5 Abracadabra_6:7

The contents of the braces in records #1 and #2 in the example--a leading space followed by a letter: { a} -- force the sort of your introductory material, but will not appear on screen or in a print. The angle brackets (< >) enclosing your text will allow it to appear normally, but will ensure that it does not affect the sort. Since CINDEX does not print or display completely blank lines or entries, to make it display an apparently blank entry you must use the angle brackets enclosing a space (as in record #3 in the example).
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11. My client has specified a set number of characters per line. She wants me to format my index so that lines are 35-characters wide at 10 characters per inch. How should I proceed?
First, keep in mind that you're concerned with line length so that you can give your client a controlled line count, which he/she will use for estimating a page count for the index. Many clients do not realize that CINDEX can provide direct estimates of page count, if you specify the type size, font size, and page layout. You may wish to remind your client that if you have this information, you can provide a direct estimate of page count. That aside, here's what you need to do if a fixed number of characters per line is required. First, choose Courier for your font (sometimes called "Courier New" on computers running Windows), and choose a size of 12 points. Unlike proportionally-spaced fonts, which use varying amounts of space for different characters, Courier is a monospaced font that uses exactly the same amount of space for each character. For example, lowercase i and m each occupy the same space. As you may remember from typing class, if you'd set your typewriter to 10 characters per inch, you then would "work backwards" and plan your margins based on your paper width. Similarly, if you use Courier 12 (which simulates 10 pitch on the typewriter--10 characters per inch) you can do a little math and figure where you'd like your margins to fall using inches as your unit of measure. You'll use this formula:
(character count for column width x .10") + total margins = paper width
or:
total margins = paper width - (character count for column width x .10")

Based on a 35-character line, and an 8.5" x 11" page size, it works out like this:       35 x .10" + total margins = 8.5"
or:
      total margins = 8.5" - (35 x .10")
which reduces to:
      total margins = 8.5" - 3.5" = 5.0"

You can split the total amount for the margins however you'd like: 4" and 1", or 2" and 3" or 0" and 5" and so on. CINDEX might adjust one or both of the settings slightly, depending on your printer's needs. Don't worry about this--the correction will not affect the number of characters displayed on a line.

Keep in mind that your client is probably asking for this because she's using an old method for estimating pages, dating from a time when indexes were submitted as typewritten copy. This is not unusual, many publishers struggle with this daily. Since the advent of proportionally spaced fonts, with all their possible size and style variations, and the flexibility in specifying indentations (Just how big is a tab or an en dash or an em space anyway?) and page sizes, publishers have found it hard to develop satisfactory methods for estimating the size of the printed index.
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12. I seem to get variable spacing between the last character of text and first page number. What am I doing wrong?
Check your settings by choosing Page References from the Document menu. There are two separate settings for Punctuation: Before Single and Before Multiple. Be sure that you've got identical settings in both of these boxes. The "Before Single" setting will be applied when your text is followed only by one reference, the "Before multiple" setting will apply when you've more than one reference for a particular index entry.

Sometimes, text that looks variably spaced on the screen is in fact spaced correctly for printing. Letters formed on the screen can look incorrectly spaced because the resolution of the screen is lower than the resolution of your printer. If you are in doubt, print a test page.
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PREPARING WORK FOR THE EDITOR/PUBLISHER

13. My editor has asked me for a Microsoft Word file. What file type do I save?
RTF (Rich Text Format).
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14. My editor has asked me for a file for WordPerfect for Windows. What file type do I save?
RTF (Rich Text Format).
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15. My editor has asked for sequences of tabs to be inserted to identify sub-headings in a RTF encoded file. Is she confusing tabs with the styles definitions that RTF provides?
Maybe, maybe not. The leading indentation that CINDEX provides for subheadings in a Rich Text Format file can be defined either as an attribute of the subheading, or as a sequence of characters (usually tabs). Which method CINDEX uses by default is determined by settings you make by choosing Preferences (Formatted Export) from the Edit menu. When you use Save As... from the File menu to save an RTF file you can override the default setting.
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16. My editor has told me that each index line in the file must not exceed 43 characters. How do I provide a file with this number of characters per line?
You don't. When you save a formatted index in a file CINDEX does not generally save line breaks, because you do not know the font or type size in which the index is to be set. If you want to view or print the index with the 43 character width limit, see the answer above.
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17. My editor has asked for a plain ASCII file? What is this and how do I make it?
An ASCII file contains only the formatted text of entries; it does not contain information about type styles (e.g., boldface or italics) or fonts. To make such a file choose Save As... from the File menu, then in the dialog box that CINDEX displays choose Plain Text from the Format pop-up menu (Macintosh) or Save as Type list (Windows). Note, however, that all information about type styles and fonts will be omitted from the file (it is retained in the original index). For this reason it is generally not a good idea to save indexes as plain text files.
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18. How can I ensure that the file I've made is correctly encoded?
All CINDEX documents that contain formatted indexes are text documents, and can be opened and viewed by any word processor or text editor. Depending on the document type, the word-processor that you use to open it may or may not interpret the formatting information. If you have made a file in Rich Text Format (RTF), the work-processor will interpret the formatting information, and should display the document as it looked when displayed by CINDEX in a fully formatted view. If you have made a document that contains markup tags for typesetting, you will see these tags displayed as plain text.
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FILES AND INTERNET

19. How can I back-up my index?
There are several ways to make a backup copy of the index you are working on:

From within CINDEX, choose Save Backup Copy from the File menu.

To save a compact archival copy of an index (from which you can later reconstruct a working index), make an archive. Choose Save As... from the File menu, then in the dialog box that CINDEX displays, choose Archive as the file type. You should always let CINDEX save the archive with the filename extension '.arc'.
From the Finder (Macintosh) or Windows Explorer (Windows) you can duplicate any index document.

Whichever method you use, you should save the backup copy on some disk other than the one that contains the original.
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20. I'm going to be collaborating with another indexer, and we will need to exchange indexes for incorporation into a master index. What kind of files should we send each other?
If your colleague uses either CINDEX for Windows or CINDEX for Macintosh, you and she should send archives. To make an archive copy of an index choose Save As... from the File menu, then in the dialog box that CINDEX displays, choose Archive as the file type. Archives are interchangeable between CINDEX versions running on Windows and Macintosh computers. When you save an archive you should always let CINDEX save the file with the filename extension '.arc'. CINDEX can always recognize an archive if it has the filename extension '.arc'. If your colleague uses CINDEX for DOS or Macrex, you should exchange tab-delimited files. To make a tab-delimited file choose Save As... from the File menu, then in the dialog box that CINDEX displays, choose Delimited Records (DOS) as the file type. You should always let CINDEX save the file with the filename extension '.dat'.
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21. I received an index as an email attachment and CINDEX could not open it. Why?
There are a several of possible causes. Check these points:

Check that the file was in a format that CINDEX can open directly. CINDEX can open index files (on Windows computers these will always have the filename extension '.cdx'; on Macintosh computers they may have any names), and archive files. Index files have different internal structure on Windows and Macintosh computers, and are not interchangeable across platforms. Archive files are interchangeable across platforms. For more information on moving files between platforms see the answer above.
If you received a file with the filename extension '.dat' (a format used for interchange with DOS computers) you must first create a new index, then import the contents of the file by choosing Import... from the File menu.
Check that the email attachment has not had its name changed. CINDEX for Windows recognizes files it can open by the presence of a filename extension as the last part of the name (for example '.cdx' or '.arc'). If the extension has been changed or removed, or has had additional text appended to it, CINDEX will not be able to identify and open the file.
(Macintosh only). Check that the sender of the attachment provided information about document type. CINDEX for Macintosh, like other Macintosh programs, does not rely on the filename to identify an index document. That information is held separately, and sometimes is not transmitted with the document. If that information is missing, the document will not show the CINDEX index icon. To avoid problems of this sort, it is generally safer to transmit indexes as archive documents. For more information see the answer above.