I have a question about indexing.
I still use NBWIN 7.0b. Because I have been working on a book for several years, and hope to finish this summer, I am planning to delay the transition to version 8 (until after I complete the book project). Basically, I do not wish to invest time in a transition to the new version of NB or to risk encountering large problems in the transition.
So, before everybody forgets how to use 7.0b, here is my question. Although I have used NB for more than 15 years, I have never used the indexing function. I wrote the index to my first two books manually in NB, and I paid a professional indexer for an anthology index (I edited the anthology). These two options—writing the index manually myself, or paying a professional—are possibilities for this new book. But why not write the index with the NB indexing function? As I understand it, I mark items (words or passages in the text), and they are then magically included in an organized index (I’m sure I’m missing a few steps here).
I don’t understand, however, how such an index, marked in the NB text, would be useable. For my previous books, the publisher has sent me page galleys, and then asks for an index (within a week or so). Naturally, the publisher wants the index coordinated with the page numbers in the galleys, not the page numbers in the original NB text (or the original NB text converted into RTF or something else). How, then, is the automatic indexing function useful?
The only possible remedy that I can imagine would be to convert the NB document into whatever font the publisher is using (in the galleys), thus approximating in the NB document the page breaks in the galleys. But, at best, this would be an approximation and would require manual checking (if I want the index to be accurate).
I hope that an experienced Nota Bene indexer can tell me that there is an easy solution to this difficulty.
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