[X4U] Book Indexing Software?

[Tim Collier]

On 10/10/08 10:19 AM, Zane H. Healy said:

> I was asked the following question the other day and I haven't a
> clue.  Of course the software the person is talking about ran on DOS.
> Any ideas?
> 
> Zane
> 
>> There used to be a program that was great for creating an index of a
>> book or periodical from back in 1991. Do you know of a program that
>> will run on todays computers that is easy and will do such a thing?
>> 
>> I was thinking of using excel but  thought that there might be
>> something just for this project rather than a make shift thing. I do
>> know that with excel one can save to word and then play with that or
>> just tell it to print out with out lines etc. When done I would like
>> to produce a two columned list.
>> 
>> What I would like to do is a sort on (1)surnames, (2)first names and
>> (3)page numbers, kick out all the duplicate verbiage when done and
>> have a nice tidy index of surnames, first names and all the pages
>> that they are listed on.
>> 
>> Any suggestions?
> 
Question:  Does he want this to be a dynamic, sortable on the fly type list
or just static?  If he wants the former, a dynamic database driven webpage
would be the answer or a Filemaker database.  If he simply wants it to be a
static page, then using Word and Excel will do the job nicely, or even just
Word alone.
Still, I don't like the way Excel sort of messes up sorts, Filemaker is a
lot better.
Really, we need a bit more information about what he wants this to DO and/or
what he wants to do with this.  So, there is not a simple answer without
more information as to what he actually wants to "do".  E.G., if he wants to
add new information that is easily updateable, the dynamic web page makes
more sense.  I use Dreamweaver and designing a web page that does that is
REALLY easy.
If he just wants a document style that he updates from time to time, Word is
the answer.
--
Tim Collier
MacBook Pro 2.33 gig 4 gig RAM
http://www.timcolliermiami.com/
Soy un español en mi mente pero atrapado en un cuerpo estadounidense.