On Tuesday 19 June 2007 10:04, Clayton wrote:

This is just a general question about indexing. I am working on a large document that is being ported over to Wiki format. One of the printed doc features that has fallen off with the port to Wiki is the index.

In traditional documentation, a good index was important. As we move more and more away from traditional doc techniques and go to web based docs we rely on search engines to fill the gap where indexes and index tagging (in traditional tools like Framemaker) are missing.

How important are people finding the index in newer doc methods? What can be done to fill that missing indexes for online docs? Especially for online docs (such as Wiki) that can be converted to PDF to deliver a traditional book for people who prefer to read off line?

I'm the index obsessed doku-wichtl. The lack of indexing drives me crazy. Searching turns up every reference to a word, but doesn't focus on what is important. This is why we use XML for our docs so our PDFs can still have indexes. I still have a dream of somehow making a compiled index for our product manuals so you could look one place and find the info that shows up in any book, but that has extra challenges in term selection. However, the Novell documentation team skips indexing, considering it unnecessary for online docs. So opinions differ. If you believe in indexing, you try to index properly and use a format that supports it. If you don't, you don't bother even if you use a format that supports it. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-doc+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-doc+help@opensuse.org

Hi Clayton, On Tuesday, 19. June 2007 10:04:19 Clayton wrote:

[...]

In traditional documentation, a good index was important.

I still consider this important, so probably Rebecca is not the only one obsessed by indices. ;) Really good documentation do not just have an index, they create terms what are useful for the readers.

As we move more and more away from traditional doc techniques and go to web based docs we rely on search engines to fill the gap where indexes and index tagging (in traditional tools like Framemaker) are missing.

Yes, and that's sometimes really a pity. In short texts, an index isn't really necessary. However, in larger documentation, a good index is a benefit for the reader.

How important are people finding the index in newer doc methods? What can be done to fill that missing indexes for online docs? Especially for online docs (such as Wiki) that can be converted to PDF to deliver a traditional book for people who prefer to read off line?

I can only speak for myself and for LfL: If you create an indexterm in one of our DocBook sources, it will create an index both in online and print formats. However, apart from the technical side, I consider a really good index still as a kind of an "art". In a project like LfL we haven't defined indexing yet. In book production, indices are created at the very end, and I think LfL makes no exception to that. Many publishers let one person create the index to have a consistent wording. From my perspective, I don't think it makes sense to work on index on LfL now. Nevertheless, if we (as a community) think LfL has reached some "stable" grounds we can implement indexing. So these are just some random thoughts. Best wishes, Tom -- Thomas Schraitle ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SUSE LINUX GmbH >o) Documentation Specialist Maxfeldstrasse 5 /\\ 90409 Nuernberg _\_v http://en.opensuse.org/Documentation_Team --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-doc+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-doc+help@opensuse.org