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Subject:Page ranges in an index From:Amy Medici <Amy -dot- Medici -at- HARPERCOLLINS -dot- COM> Date:Thu, 4 Sep 1997 17:01:20 -0400
This thread made me rethink my approach but after discussion with a
coworker and review of other companys' indexes, we decided the current
method works.
Our indexes only list the first page in a range. This keeps the
appearance simple since, our page numbers include the chapter number.
For example, page 1 of section 2 displays as 2-1. To include a range,
I should change the separator between chapter and page number.
Microsoft Word's default index generates 2-1--2-4 which looks
confusing at first. I could change the chapter/page number separator
to a period (which could be confused with our version numbers) or to a
colon (which I do not use anywhere else).
Also, I looked through a few manuals and found the use of page ranges
verses first page in a range evenly split.
I'm curious to hear how others with a chapter-page number numbering
method format their indexes. There was only one company that had the
chapter-page number numbering method that included a page range in
their index. They used the word 'to' to indicate the range. I did
not think the extra text in my index would benefit the reader enough
to and offset the loss of white space and time spent adding bookmarks
and manually changing the default '--' to 'to'.
As we usually say, consistency is key.
Amy Medici
Technical Writer
amy -dot- medici -at- harpercollins -dot- com
____________
Response to:
____________
Date: Wed, 3 Sep 1997 08:19:32 -0400
From: rebecca siegel <rebecca -at- ZLOGIC -dot- COM>
Subject: Re: Page ranges in an index
MIME-Version: 1.0
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Hi Roy,
You wrote:
> Is there an advantage to using page ranges for entries in an index?
There's at least one big advantage to using page ranges: the ranges
tell
the index reader that the topic is convered in some depth on those
pages
(or, at least more extensively than a single-page reference implies).
Rebecca Siegel
Logic Associates
rebecca -at- zlogic -dot- com
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