[mso] Re: Alphabetizing table of contents- how??
- From: "David Smart" <smartware@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <mso@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2009 09:28:24 +1100
Microsoft didn't begin this differentiation. I was used to it in systems
that predated the Microsoft offerings.
> In the UK we often use "table of contents" and "index"
> interchangeably, ...
Is this true among publishing professionals, or just among lay-people? I
imagine that the general public world-wide don't tend to differentiate, but
I've (in Australia) used the terms quite specifically with regard to
technical publications from long before personal computers came along.
> Ultimately a book is just a very long essay
... in the same way that the Mona Lisa is just a sketch, and Everest is just
a hill. :-)
My take on essay vs book is that an essay is a relatively informal and
relatively unstructured work. A book is a structured and formal work. For
instance, books have chapters and essays don't. (All rules, of course, are
made to be broken.) If an essay needs a table of contents, then it is
probably no longer an essay.
For example, I would not call a 700-page doctoral thesis an essay. In fact,
if I named it as such in its author's presence, I would certainly not be
popular. But the 20 pagers they had submitted during their structured
courses would be called essays by all.
I don't think we need to blame Microsoft for this. There's enough other
stuff to blame them for. :-)
Regards, Dave S
----- Original Message -----
From: "Anne Robson" <anne.robson@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <mso@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, January 10, 2009 8:07 AM
Subject: [mso] Re: Alphabetizing table of contents- how??
>I think some of the confusion has arisen because of the differences between
> UK English and US English added to the terms that Microsoft use to
> describe
> certain features. In the UK we often use "table of contents" and "index"
> interchangeably, whereas Microsoft assigns specific uses to them. And as
> it's a "one size fits all" solution for all types of application we have
> legal terms, word processing terms, desktop publishing terms etc etc and
> heaven help us if we don't know which is the right term for what we
> intrinsically know we want to do!
> It often comes down to which starting point we came to Office from as to
> how
> we learn it. I was a trained secretary originally and it pains me at
> times
> to see things over complicated by folk who are computer people first and
> foremost! Ultimately a book is just a very long essay In the old days we
> would have typed it out manually, numbered it manually and indexed it
> manually. Now we make a whole process out of what should be a quicker
> job.
> There is often a simpler solution than what we use. the trick is to find
> the simpler one at the outset!
>
> :)
> 2009/1/7 James S. Huggins (mso) <MicrosoftOffice@xxxxxxxxx>
>
>>
>> ===========================
>> I've hesitated about coming in on this one as I didn't want to throw a
>> cat
>> among the pigeons. But my route would have been not to start in Word at
>> all, but create the info in Excel and then sort on my chosen fields
>> before
>> doing a Word mailmerge to a catalog using the Excel file as my data
>> source.
>> I've done this for years with a lot of success, so long as the field
>> lengths
>> don't exceed Excel's capacity (if I recall in 2000 they may have been
>> more
>> limited than more recent versions). It's a really good way to handle
>> lots
>> of data, including text (Excel is really good at handling text not just
>> numbers!) and getting a professional version at the end of it. You can
>> then
>> set the item you want to create your index on each page with an index
>> mark
>> or link to a paragraph style that achieves the same result.
>> And just to mix the metaphors, this may be a total red herring!
>> ===========================
>>
>> Not a red herring at all. A good idea. "Database publishing" which is
>> what
>> you are describing, creates printed material out of a database, in your
>> case, the Excel spreadsheet functioning as a simple database. It's a
>> perfectly acceptable approach.
>>
>> For me, the subject of this whole discussion threw me from the beginning.
>> Why? Because Tables of Contents are "by definition" not alphabetized.
>> They
>> do "by definition" appear in "page order". Indexes are "by definition"
>> alphabetized.
>>
>> To me, the need for an alphabetized table of contents shows the need for
>> an
>> alphabetized book. You would not, for example, create a dictionary with
>> words in random order, then provide an alphabetical index to find the
>> words.
>> Just put the information in the most natural order to begin with.
>>
>> At least, that is how it seems to me.
>>
>>
>> James S. Huggins
>>
>>
>
>
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