RE: Indexes in the PDF era

Subject: RE: Indexes in the PDF era
From: "Bonnie Granat" <bgranat -at- granatedit -dot- com>
To: <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2007 10:46:03 -0500



> From: Erika Yanovich

>
> Hi Whirlers,
> Before starting an initiative to improve our indexes, I consulted with
> the team leaders and to my surprise, one of the possibilities
> mentioned
> was to not provide indexes at all. The claim was that people
> are now so
> used to search for everything (google effect) that using
> indexes became
> somewhat archaic.



I totally disagree, because a good index will have terms that are *not*
found in the book but that refer readers to the appropriate place for what
they are *really* looking for . Many people don't *know* the product at all
and will not know the right words to look for. An indexer thinks like both
an experienced product user and a totally clueless new user.

Besides, PDFs are frequently printed out and used, so what then? Unless
there's a fantastically detailed TOC, how happy would anyone be with no
index in a hard-copy PDF?

Bonnie Granat
http://www.GranatEdit.com


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Follow-Ups:

References:
Indexes in the PDF era: From: Erika Yanovich

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