HOW TO CREATE
A GREAT
INDEX
IT’S THE LAST THING YOU CREATE AND THE FIRST THING MANY PEOPLE READ. MAKE IT USER FRIENDLY AND THOROUGH.
B Y B R A D L E Y W I L S O N
SUMMER 2003
THE INDEX at the back of the book is perhaps the most important reader service. It’s the first place most students turn after looking at the cover. It’s where they check to see that their name is spelled correctly. It’s where they check to see how many times they’re in the book. It’s where they decide if the money they paid for the book was worth it. ❖ Twenty years from now, classmates will be finding their old friends’ faces more easily because of the hours you put in.
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MORE FUN THAN CLEANING CRUMBS FROM A TOASTER
Pre-printed cards with the numbers of each page in the book make it easy to track what page each student appears on. When a page is submitted to the plan, circle the pages. Then use the data on the cards to enter the index data after the final deadline.
WHY INDEX As one adviser said, creating an index is about as much fun as cleaning crumbs from a toaster. So why spend all the time it takes to create a good index? LINDA BALLEW: The reason for including one is simple: readability. Readability is the overriding key to a successful yearbook. The photos, advertising, copy and design work together to capture a story line. An index helps increase the ease with which readers can access any of the elements that would provide them with the information about the story of their year. WAYNA POLK: Both readers and browsers look up their name in the index to see how many times they are in the book. They also look up the names of their friends and their friends’ page number so they can find their pictures. If we have everyone reading the index, then we need to devote time and effort into making it reader friendly. LISA MORRIS: We index as a service to our readers. Considering that a yearbook can contain thousands of photos, an index is an essential timesaving tool. While the index is important when the book is first distributed, it becomes more important as years go by and graduates try to look up information that is no longer fresh in their memories. Right now you may know that you appear on the Spanish Club spread, but in 20 years the index will “remember” that information when you don’t. LORI OGLESBEE: Because a yearbook is a reference book for years to come, an index is an invaluable way for the reader to find selective information quickly. The index should include more than names and should include all courses, clubs, activities and sports.
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AUDREY KEMP: The yearbook is also a reference so the index is a tool for people to use the yearbook quickly. We do a hand index and an electronic index. NANCY SMITH: Aside from the basic “good journalism” reasons for including an index, our working index serves as a constant reminder of what students have been included in the book. We print it and post it every week as we index completed spreads so that we can quit picturing/quoting some students and make a serious effort to seeking out those who have not yet been featured somewhere. With a school of more than 2,000 students, it is taught sometimes to get to everyone, but the indexing process makes that much easier. SANDY WOODCOCK: Because when you want to find out where a student can be found or where an event/topic is covered, you ought to be able to do it quickly and easily. It’s a necessary reader aid. And it’s another great way to raise the consciousness of the staff to make sure that every student gets covered and that the same students don’t hog the coverage.
WHAT TO INDEX What should I index? LINDA BALLEW: Everything - every topic, every subject area, every department or discipline, every sport, every person and every group must appear in one, continuous index. There is no need to separate the index into a student index, a topic index, a faculty index or an advertising index. Names of persons who did not have their pictures taken should appear in the index with a simple “NP” (not pictured) listed instead of page number. Do not take up this space in the portrait section. Cross-reference every type of copy: text, cutline, alternative copy, such as infographics, sidebars, Q&A, scatter-stories, and so on.
If you can’t find pre-printed cards, use index cards and write the page numbers and the student’s name on each card. This is also a great way to track the number of different students in the book. The more cards, the more students.
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Index from the 2001 Cohiscan (Connersville High School (Ind.), Allison Haselwander and Tiffany Hauri, editors; Lisa Morris, adviser). “I like the index itself because it indexes not only students, staff and advisers, but also clubs, groups, teams, events, topcs and classes,” Morris said. “In 20 years, you might not remember the exchange students’ names, but you can look up the topic and find them nonetheless.”
Every sport team, group, feature topic, course or mention in the text of the book proper should be included in the index. WAYNA POLK: If we are to produce a book that is a reference, then we must include every topic, issue, event, team and club we feature in the book. Every person named, quoted or pictured should be included even if that person does not attend your school. Too often books list only those people who are enrolled in the school. That is way too easy for all of us. You must include everyone so your index helps to tell the story of your school year. LISA MORRIS: Indexing can be as simple or as complicated as the whims of the index editor. Our index always includes people pictured in photos, quoted on the page or mentioned on the page. Including students who are quoted or mentioned expands the index and more accurately represents student coverage. Besides, students enjoy having additional page numbers by their names. We also always include all advertisers. After that, it depends on what our index editor wants to include. Some years we have included just these standard items while other years we’ve included topic references as well, including items such as club references, team references and event references. This way one could look up a topic such as marching band and find that not only do members appear on an academic spread, photos also appear in the people section, the student life section and in an advertisement. MAKE IT INTERESTING How do I make the index more SUMMER 2003
interesting and not simply a list of names? WAYNA POLK: The index can be just as reader friendly as any other section of the book. More schools are using great photos along with full captions to entice the readers to read and enjoy the index. LISA MORRIS: To spice up the index design, we always include extra photos in the index section. As the year goes by, everyone contributes to a stack of good photos that haven’t made it onto spreads. Index photos are selected from this stack. Usually these photos just have the students’ names as labels, rather than full captions. Some years we have also included newsworthy stories and short features in the index. The index is a good place to include formal club and group photos, too. AUDREY KEMP: This year we want to include extra candids that we didn’t have room for in the rest of the book. ELLEN KERSEY: Kids had to look through all the unused photos and find one for each section of the alphabet making the caption start with that letter – e.g. A - “Astronomy students lie on the tennis courts in their sleeping bags at night, studying the stars.” My favorite was for Z – we couldn’t find anything suitable, but we had a photo of a bunch of vegetables from a cooking class. The caption was something like, “Zuchinis and their friends await the knife that will put them in the soup being prepared by the students in XX’s class.” SANDY WOODCOCK: The index provides a great place to include national news events from the year. Each letter corresponded continued on page 7 COMMUNICATION: JOURNALISM EDUCATION TODAY •‑7
Index from the 2002 Ceniad (East Lansing High School (Mich.), Nick Mrozowski and Laurie Stein, editors; Lynn Strause, adviser). continued from page 8
to an event. It is another great way to provide the history of the year if you don’t buy ‘canned’ copy from your yearbook company or if you don’t buy AP photos. Or, if you do, it is a way to expand that coverage and localize it for your school/area. We also placed our club group photos here as we believed they were only for informational purposes. HOW TO INDEX How should I make the index? WAYNA POLK: We have tried every program out there. From the company’s indexing program to spread sheets, you name it. Last year we used FileMaker Pro, and it worked pretty well. Our company quit printing the cards with all the numbers on them a couple of years ago, and we had some printed locally to keep us in cards for a few more years. This year we have gone back to using paper backup ‘just in case.’ ” We get the school district to give us the student and faculty name database and print labels to go on the index cards. I have two index editors who go through our dummy yearbook, highlight names, topics, events, issues, etc, They transfer page numbers to the index cards. As pages are proofed, we cross reference one more time to make sure that the info indexed is still accurate. AUDREY KEMP: When a page is done, the student has to index the names of the people on those pages on the typed list that is in the binder. That way we can begin to see who is appearing often in the book. As proofs come back, we do a computerized index that we can place on the index pages. 8 •‑COMMUNICATION: JOURNALISM EDUCATION TODAY
An indexing feature is built into Page Maker, and we use that exclusively. Indexing is as simple as highlighting the names and hitting Command + Option + Y. Every couple weeks, as spreads are completed, we add them to the index “book” in PageMaker and have it create a new index. The index pages are always posted on the bulletin board, and students proofread each new index. LISA MORRIS: Proofing the index is a quick way to fix typos and inconsistencies. For example, it will show that Lindsey Jones is LindsAy on one page and LindsEy on two others and that Michael Smith appears as Michael three times and as Mike once. Reviewing the index also shows the yearbook staff who may be appearing or not appearing in the book. When only 30 pages of the book are completed, but two students have already appeared six times each, the staff knows they need to work in a wider variety of students. ELLEN KERSEY: Have one person (or two) responsible for indexing. I always had one student who couldn’t get into the regular yearbook class - scheduling problems - so that student would be responsible for indexing. He never had a problem getting on a computer. Index after every group of pages is sent in. Print out the new index each time. By checking the index pages every time you add new names, you will be able to spot those occasions when the same person’s name has been spelled in a variety of ways: Matt Johnson, Matthew Johnson, Mathew Johnson, Matt Johnston, etc. Determine ahead of time whether you are going to use the full legal names or allow nicknames, which add to the indexing confusion. ■ SUMMER 2003
CREATE AN INDEX ADOBE PAGEMAKER 7.0
STEP 1: TAG NAMES
STEP 2: SHOW & EDIT
To index SELECTED TEXT: 1. Select the text in your story that you want to index. 2. Press Ctrl+Shift+Y (Windows) or Command+Shift+Y (Mac). PageMaker creates an index entry using the selected text as the topic and the current page as the page reference.
Periodically while you’re creating the book and before you run the index, Show Index to check the spelling on names. For example, some books use full names in the portrait section (Lucille M. Tatum, for example), but use common names elsewhere (Lucy Tatum, for example). In the Show Index dialog box, edit the appropriate entries so they are all alike and will be indexed as one entry. Changing a name in the Show Index dialog box will not change the spelling of the name on the page.
To index a PROPER NAME, last name first: 1. In the story you are indexing, select the proper name. 2. Press Ctrl+Alt+Y (Windows) or Command+Opt+Y (Mac). The name will appear – last name first – in your index with the current page as its page reference. For example, PageMaker indexes Nathaniel Horner as Horner, Nathaniel. PREFIXES AND SUFFIXES ON NAMES To index proper names of more than two words (or names that include titles), position nonbreaking spaces between titles, first names, and middle names or initials so PageMaker sees the name as only two words. For example, to index Matthew J. Huffman, place a nonbreaking space between Matthew and J. PageMaker indexes the name as Huffman, Matthew J. To insert a nonbreaking space, press Ctrl+Alt+H (Windows) or Option+spacebar (Mac). To index ALL OCCURRENCES of words or phrases with the Change command: 1. Identify the keywords you want to index. 2. In Story Editor, click an insertion point at the beginning of any story you want to index. 3. Choose Utilities Change. 4. Type a keyword in the Find What box. 5. Type ^; (caret+semicolon) in the Change To box. The caret (^) and semicolon (;) characters tell PageMaker to index the term without changing the story text. Note: Type ^z (caret+z) instead of ^; (caret+semicolon) to format the index entry as a proper name – last name first – without changing the story text. 6. Use one of the following options: • Click Change All to index all instances of the word as it appears in the story. • Click Find to evaluate each instance of the keyword before you create an entry for it. • Click Change and Find to index the current instance of the keyword and then go to the next instance.
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STEP 3: CREATE INDEX After you’re done tagging the names and are convinced they’re all edited, Create Index…. In the Index Format dialog box, specify what you want following each name (topic), between page numbers and between entries. In this example, the designer used a tab (caret + t) after each topic – a tab that can be formatted later as part of the paragraph styles. He used a comma (and no space) following page numbers and a paragraph return (caret + p) after each entry so each name was on a separate line.
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CREATE AN INDEX QUARKXPRESS 5.0 NOTE: Quark’s indexing function is new to version 5.0. It was not available in earlier versions of the software. Some outside vendors have written XTensions for indexing within Quark. None is as easy-to-use as the built-in functions in Quark 5.
STEP 1: TAG NAMES
STEP 2: SET PREFS
To index SELECTED TEXT: 1. Select the text in your story that you want to index. 2. Press the Add Entry icon or Add All Entries icon in the Index palette. Quark creates an index entry using the selected text as the topic and the current page as the page reference. Then click Add All.
In the Index Preferences dialog box, specify what you want following each name (topic), between page numbers and between entries. In this example, the designer used a tab (slash + t) after each topic – a tab that can be formatted later as part of the paragraph styles. He used a comma (and no space) following page numbers and a paragraph return (slash + p) after each entry so each name was on a separate line.
To index a PROPER NAME, last name first: 1. Select the text in your story that you want to index. 2. Hold down the Option key, and press the Add entry icon or Add All entries icon in the Index palette. Quark creates an index entry using the selected text as the topic and the current page as the page reference.
STEP 3: BUILD INDEX To actually create the index, a text file to be placed on the page and formatted like any other story, including style sheets, select Build Index… from the Utilities menu. Quark applies the styles indicated.
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SUMMER 2003
CREATE AN INDEX ADOBE INDESIGN 2.0 NOTE: InDesign’s indexing function is new to version 2.0. It was not available in earlier versions of the software. Bugs were fixed in version 2.02 and CS.
STEP 1: TAG NAMES
STEP 2: PREVIEW ENTRIES
To index SELECTED TEXT: Select the text and type Command + U. This brings up a dialog in which you can modify the entry (to correct for different spellings of names, for example).
As with most things in InDesign, palettes are the key to success. The menu under the Index palette gives the user opportunities to edit and manipulate the index. The cool thing about the index palette is that the designer can have it showing or not. The designer doesn’t have to stop everything to show the index. This is handy for making sure names are spelled correctly and consistently.
To index SELECTED TEXT: 1. Select the text in your story that you want to index. 2. Press Command+Option+U (Mac). InDesign creates an index entry using the selected text as the topic and the current page as the page reference. To index a PROPER NAME, last name first: 1. In the story you are indexing, select the proper name. 2. Press Command + Shift + F8 (Mac). The name will appear – last name first – in your index with the current page as its page reference. For example, InDesign indexes Jerry Moore as Moore, Jerry.
STEP 3: GENERATE INDEX To generate the actual index file, use the Generate Index function under the Index palette. The function brings up a dialog box with options similar to those in PageMaker but all in one place. As in PageMaker, you can define the format of the index by using the styles and separators. In this example, the designer used a tab (caret + t) after each topic – a tab that can be formatted later as part of the paragraph styles. He used a comma (and no space) following page numbers and a paragraph return (caret + p) after each entry so each name was on a separate line.
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