Sams Teach Yourself StarOffice® 5 for Linux in 24 Hours

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Hour 10: Using Tables, Indexes, and Other Special Features

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Creating an Index


Indexing a document is tedious business. Unless you're a professional indexer (there are such things) or you like using boxes of 3x5 index cards (as did the late science writer Isaac Asimov), you'll appreciate the indexing features of StarOffice.

Indexes aren't used just for books like this one, although you can certainly write and index your book in StarOffice. Indexes add a professional touch to any document that's longer than a dozen pages. They help a reader skim a large amount of text or find just the right piece of information.

Creating an index in StarOffice consists of two steps, which are outlined in detail in the following sections.

First, you insert index markers in your document. Each index marker is associated with the term or concept next to the marker. That is, you insert a marker that says Apache tribe, history of , at the beginning of the sentence or paragraph that describes the history of the Apaches.

Second, you insert or update the index. In this step, StarOffice processes all the index markers found in your document (or in the multiple files in a Master document) and assembles the text from the index markers, in alphabetical order, with the page numbers where each marker was found.

Each time you add text to your document, the page number on which an index marker is found can change. But with the index markers in place, you can just update the index again to have the index include all the correct page numbers. Updating an index takes only a few seconds and requires no input from you.

Tip - The update process for a StarOffice index is called generating the index in many other word processors.


Now try creating a simple index using these steps. Use one of the StarOffice sample documents because you need a document to index. You can use your own document, or follow along in the sample document.

To begin, open the following StarOffice sample document:


Office50/explorer/samples/text_documents/chapters/chapter1.sdw

You can open this document by using the Explorer window. Follow these steps:

1. Expand the Samples tree in the Explorer.

2. In the Samples tree, expand the Text Documents tree.

3. Double-click on the Chapters folder. The contents of the Chapters folder appear on the Desktop.

4. On the desktop, double-click on the Chapter1 file.

This document is shown in Figure 10.12.

Figure 10.12
The Chapter1 sample document.

Inserting Index Markers

Insert an index marker next to any term in your document that you think a reader might want to find in the index. Because the sample document Chapter1 is about houses, assume that the reader is interested in housing terms.

Caution - This sample document already includes many index markers. Add your own to them and then review the index that these markers create.


Before adding new index markers to the sample chapter, save the file under a different name so that you can modify it without altering the original sample file. Follow these steps after loading the Chapter1 file:

1. Choose Save As from the File menu.

2. Enter a new name for the file (for example, enter ~/chap1new to save it in your home directory with the name chap1new).

3. Choose OK to save the document and close the dialog box.

To add a new index marker, follow these steps:

1. In the first line, select the text colonial-style.

2. From the Indexes submenu of the Insert menu, choose Entry. The Insert Index Entry dialog box appears, as in Figure 10.13.

Figure 10.13
Use the Insert Index Entry dialog box to place an index marker in your document.

3. Choose Index from the drop-down list of the Index field. (Table of Contents is another option in this field, but you're creating an index entry.)

4. The option that you selected--colonial-style--is shown in the Entry field. This is the alphabetized index entry that you're creating.

5. Choose OK to insert the index entry into your document. The selected option (colonial-style) is shown in gray to indicate the entry.

Other words in this sample document are already index entries and appear in gray. You can turn the gray words on or off by selecting Field Shadings from the View menu.

Add one more index entry. In this example, the index entry doesn't have to match the words that you select, although they are the basis for the entry:

1. In the first line of the second paragraph, place the cursor near the option tiled entranceway .

2. Choose Entry from the Indexes submenu of the Insert menu. The Insert Index Entry dialog box appears.

3. Select Index from the drop-down list of the Index field.

4. In the Entry field, enter this text:


Entranceway, tiled

5. Choose OK to insert the Index Entry marker.

This index entry is alphabetized under Entranceway instead of under Tiled. A good index will include both entries, to help readers locate the information by looking for either term.

You can add as many index entries as you think your document needs. If the index entry matches the selected text, the text is highlighted after the entry is added. If no text was selected or if the entry doesn't match the selected text, a mark is placed between words. These marks appear in gray when you select Field Shadings from the View menu.

StarOffice provides additional options that you can use when you create index entries, including multiple entries and keys that are used to combine multiple entries under a single alphabetic entry (see the sheets entry in the sample index in the next section.)

Inserting the Index

When you have added all the index entries that you need, you're ready to insert the actual index into your document.

For this example, move your cursor to the end of the Chapter1 document. Choose Index from the Indexes submenu of the Insert menu. The Insert Index dialog box appears (see Figure 10.14).

Figure 10.14
Use the Insert Index dialog box to place the actual index in your document.

You can review the options presented in the dialog box, but for a basic index, just choose OK. The completed index, based on all the index entries in this file, is inserted at the end of your document because you moved your cursor there. (See Figure 10.15.)

Figure 10.15
The index is created automatically, based on the index entries that you place in your document.

Updating an Index

When you have the index in place, you might still need to add or remove information from your document. This can involve adding and deleting words that are marked as index entries. It can also mean moving text around so that the page numbers in the index aren't correct.

StarOffice enables you to update the index without worrying about the location of the index entries in the document.

Any time you need to update the index with the latest index entries and correct page numbers, select Update from the Tools menu and choose Current Index or All Indexes from the submenu. The specified index entries are instantly reexamined and corrected in your document.

Sams Teach Yourself StarOffice® 5 for Linux in 24 Hours

ContentsIndex

Hour 10: Using Tables, Indexes, and Other Special Features

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