Since I don’t see it mentioned in your post, have you been through the tutorial/demo of how to do this, near the top of the thread?
I’ll understand if it doesn’t work for how you wrote things, depending on that it might be too much work to switch to a different compile method, but for many works it wouldn’t be too much trouble.
The main difference with it is that the compiler side of things is much simpler. Questions such as how to restart footnotes are automatically no longer compiler questions, but rather something you would do with your word processor template.[1]
But as to that, for the built-in RTF-based conversion, the setting you are looking for is in the Footnotes & Comments compile format pane, with the Numbering setting. By default it is set to “Continuous”, but this can be changed to “Restarts each section”. ↩︎
I’m really enjoying this thread, as I have a Scrivener manuscript that needs an index. I tried AmberV’s method, and it works!. Thank you, AmberV.
But I have a problem: words identified as index terms on different pages of the manuscript don’t show different pages in the index. Instead I get this kind of result in the index: 1f. or 1 ff.—which apparently means page 1 and following on one other page, or page 1 and following on more than one other page.
Can the script shown on AmberV’s post on Oct 22 be changed to show the different page numbers where an index term appears in the manuscript.
I’m using Scrivener for Mac 3.3.6 and LibreOffice 24.8.0.3.
Thanks for any help.
Glad you got it sorted. And yes in general, layout and presentation decisions are going to be dictated by the document at a higher level than the markup that indicates where an anchor point is for an index term, and what that term is. All I am doing with the export format is saying: “this word right here should be in the index”. How the index is presented, how such terms are referenced and so on, is governed entirely by the index listing element that you insert in LibreOffice.
P.S. I’ve moved this over to the general discussion thread on indexing with these settings, as the other thread you had posted to was a very specific bug report.
Amber, would you be willing to create a video tutorial on “Creating An Index with Page Numbers in Scrivener”? So many Scrivener users have inquired, and it is such an important part of any good non-fiction book.
I’m not much for making video tutorials, sorry to say. Did you make a run through the tutorial checklist in this post, which goes through a simple “lorem ipsum” demonstration? Happy to clarify anything in there that is unclear.
My interest in a native indexing tool within Scrivener has a much to do with the writing process and writing environment as it has to do with a compiled exported book. A living glossary/index made integral to the Scrivener writing interface and writing environment would vastly improve the organization and navigation workflow of writing any type of book or essay. If it was easy to select a string of text and then attach an Index annotation [INDEX:Term], and if Scrivener was able to maintain a live index of all such annotated terms and their locations, then going into index display mode could redraw the editor so that an index list replaced the Binder, or was drawn in a column next to it, and in that list, all terms in the index, and next to that list, a column where any clicked item in the index would list all designated locations of that index term in the manuscript. That list could easily be presented as the string surrounding the indexed text. Clicking on any such item would bring up the document in question and scrolled to the location where that index link has been indicated. A special collections area and functionality could also be used for index navigation. Same goes with Project Search “Index” criteria.
I’ve tried the tutorial, and all the steps make sense until I get into word, but then I’m unsure what to do. Can someone tell me how to insert the index in word? When I’ve tried, I get the message that there is nothing indexed.
Also @AmberV can you clarify what steps 2 and 3 in the tutorial do? Do I create an index term and an index Key for each word I use this style on, or do I create one of each and then mark all words that I want in the index with them to extract in word?
I am working on a short form academic book, and it would be much more time effective to index while I write rather than during proofing using word. I’ve used Scrivener some for writing, but this is the first bigger project and I’m still figuring out how to use all the functionality.
Unfortunately, I don’t really know what the precise steps in Word are to add an index to a document that is marked up with indexing keywords, but I’m sure there are plenty of how-tos on the Web for that.
Regarding your question on how to use the styles, it’s entirely up to preference whether you use one or the other, or both. I maybe don’t understand that question—or where it is coming from, as I’m also confused on why one would want to make a new style for each individual indexing term. What is the problem you are trying to solve with that solution? It might help to know that part.
Or maybe the fundamental confusion here is that you haven’t made the connection to this actually just being like how you use styles, and it being no more complicated than that, from the text editor side of things. I.e. one would not create a new Emphasis style for each range of text throughout the work that needs to be emphasised, right? That would be insanity.
But again, maybe you have some very specific problem I’m not seeing. There are certainly cases where one might need variation in how a style works that goes beyond the text variability being marked. But I would say there are often better solutions to that (especially with markup), than proliferating style types.
This tool works from a PDF of your otherwise-final interior book galley. That is how it can properly provide the correct page numbers of a given index term.
The software is amazing. It automatically weights and ranks each potential index term and builds a starting index. You can then iterate through the possible terms, starting with the most likely terms to be included and working toward the least likely, and make the changes you want. The software updates the index for you as you go. You can combine terms where two or more terms mean the same thing. It’s a powerful approach.
Textract outputs to an RTF file, which you can then add to your book’s interior galley and format any way you want. In the screenshot, I’ve formatted it with InDesign, but you can use any tool you want (even Word) for that.
It’s not inexpensive. In my case, the time it saved me was well worth it. Your mileage may vary, of course.
There is also the free Picardy indexing software. I looked at TExtract but can’t afford it (besides, it’s Windows) and I looked for any free/affordable alternatives.
I just downloaded it and haven’t used it yet, so I cannot speak as to how good it is.
In looking at the Picardy documentation, it requires a great deal of manual work. The author has to iterate through the full document and mark each term to be included, including its page number. For me, this is a bridge too far. TExtract does this heavy lifting for us, saving hours if not days of work. It’s a fundamentally different approach.
That said, I imagine something like Picardy would be fine if it’s just for a one-off book project now and again, especially if budget is limited and time is not.
Just to be clear, I haven’t tried Picardy. I’d enjoy getting a report on how to works out for anyone trying it.
When compiling to Word and you visualise the fields / show white space you should see something like this (note word makes it hard to quickly toggle this so I added it to my quickbar, you can use ther settings to permanently enable this, LibreOffice is MUCH better at showing the index fields):
I have updated my Indexing filter for anyone taking advantage of a Markdown compile workflow. The current version is V1.2, the sample project that demonstrates how to get a full index directly from Scrivener’s compiler is here:
The short answer is no, TExtract is Windows software. Fortunately the long answer is yes, TExtract runs fine on your Mac under Boot Camp, or under Parallels Desktop or VMware Fusion.
