Here are some handy tips. We welcome tips from all MACREX users. Email us with your ideas! If any of the tips below are not clear let us know!
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Go to line ...
To go straight to any entry in the index you can type CTRL K followed by the line number (the number to the left of the entry). This is particularly useful
a) when you are editing a page number order file. Before finishing an editing session, make a note of the line number you have reached. When you start indexing again, simply type CTRL K and the number you have noted.
and
b) when you are editing a very large index with a considerable number of entries under a particular heading.
The MACREX query file
Any entry beginning with a query (?) is filed (in entry order and not sorted or printed) at the end of the index. This is where you can put your questions for the publisher, notes on typos and other mistakes, reminders to check names in dictionaries, etc. Some people use the query file as a half-way house before deleting entries. If you're not sure you really want to get rid of an entry you can precede it with a query and retrieve it later if necessary. Yet others use the query file as a half-way house when making entries - they put all the entries for the day in the query file (this means that all the entries appear in the order in which they were typed) and only remove the question mark at the end of the indexing session, having rechecked all the entries already made.
To find queries type
?<enter> (or \?<enter> if with wild is set or you are using version 6)
at the Ready prompt.
Although the query file is not normally printed you can do so by choosing ? as the first letter and ? as the last letter for printing.
Searching and replacing the MACREX 'reserved' characters ? ^ \ - $ [ ] *
In MACREX Version 7, at the top centre of the inspect and edit screen there is a message that tells you the current method that will be used for searching. the four options are:
Ingnore case/no
wild
Respect case/no
wild
Ingnore case/with
wild
Respect case/with
wild
You can rotate between these options by pressing F2. The term "wild" applies to the use of wildcards. These allow ambiguous searches (see below) that can be very useful. Wildcards are always active on MACREX Version 6. When a "with wild" option is selected, some characters (those which are also used as 'wildcards') need to be preceded by a backslash when using + or - (search forwards and backwards), CTRL A (search and replace) and CTRL H (group). For example, to find a question mark (?) in the index type
\?<enter>
to find a caret(^) type
\^<enter>
to find a hyphen (-) type
\-<enter>
and to find a backslash (\) type
\\<enter>
When searching and replacing you only need to use the backslash in the 'Find' string. Thus, to replace
^language^
with
^linguistics^
you should type
\^language\^
at the 'Find' prompt
and
^linguistics^
at the Replace prompt.
Using wildcards
(a) the caret sign ^
^ (the caret sign) has two quite separate uses in MACREX. Most users know that any text enclosed in ^^ indicates underlined or italic text. However, in editing, ^ has a quite different meaning. If you search for, e.g.
^houses
you will only find entries beginning with
houses
rather than all entries containing the word houses, e.g. 'town houses', 'country houses'
This can be extremely useful for globally changing headings. For example, if you wanted to change houses to living accommodation - but only when houses was a main heading, you would use
^houses
as the 'Find' text and
living accommodation
as the 'Replace' text.
See also tip No 5 (using wildcards (b) the dollar sign $)
Using wildcards
(b) the dollar sign $
Text or figures followed by $ will only look for that text at the end of the entry.
:a$
will only find an entry ending with an alphabetical character (:a - alphabetical character)
(this can be useful for locating entries without page numbers)
while
:d$
will only find an entry ending with a number (:d - digit)
<space>?45$ will find all the entries which only refer to page 45
similarly
<space>?4:d$
will find all the entries ending with the page numbers 40 through 49.
Looking for dates in entries
If, as is most likely, the dates in your entries consist of four digits (1945, 1789 etc.) and you have fewer than 1000 pages in the book you are indexing, a good way to locate the entries containing dates is to use
:d:d:d:d
as your search or group text. :d is a wildcard which will find numbers only. So :d:d:d:d will find any number between 1000 and 9999. If you want to refine the search you can combine the wildcard with actual numbers; e.g. 19:d:d will find dates between 1900 and 1999 and 18:d:d will find dates between 1800 and 1899.
Shortcut to save to disk
ALT 1 will allow you to save the index to disk while on the A - Add entries or the I - add, Inspect and edit menu without going back to the main menu.
Printing layout options menus shortcuts (N.B. These are not shown on the screen)
Press 1 from the main Print menu and you will get Change and Check Layout menu 1; press 2 from the main Print menu and you will get Change and Check Layout menu 2; press 3 from the main Print menu and you will get Change and Check Layout menu 3; press 4 from the main Print menu and you will get the Macrex Volume/Page number menu (also accessed from option J on menu 2)
Control key alternatives to function keys
If you hate moving your hand out of the normal typing position to prod your function keys try these alternatives (they don't necessarily work in reverse!)
F1 - CTRL Q
F2 - CTRL C
F3 - CTRL O (but this doesn't do an 'intelligent' flip)
F4 - CTRL B
F5 - CTRL F
F6 - CTRL T
F12 - CTRL K (but F12 isn't an alternative for CTRL K meaning Goto line)
Also -
Insert on/off - CTRL V
Home - CTRL E
End - CTRL X
Searching for numbers
When using + or - or CTRL A (find and replace) you can simply type the number (e.g. +245 or -245).
In Version 7, press F2 until the message at the top centre of the screen reads Ignore case/no wild and you can select entries simply by typing 245^H.
On version 6, or if you have with wild set on version 7, you must precede the number with a ?. So to group all the entries on page 245 type
?245<CTRL H>
To locate all the entries you have made between pages 240 and 249 inclusive type
?24:d<CTRL H> (:d is a wildcard indicating any number 0-9)
Using the headings from a previous index as the basis for a new index
Use the backup file from your previous index. At the MSDOS prompt (not in MACREX) type
HEADINGS<return>
You will then be given a choice of two options:
1 to make a list of all the main headings
2 to strip all the page numbers from each entry
Choose option 1. Enter the name of your MBK file and choose a new name for the headings list. Press <RETURN> at the next two prompts and your heading list will be created. This can be loaded into a new index as though it were a backup file. It doesn't matter what the backup file is called - any or no extension is acceptable.
Cumulating index files
Open a new (empty) index and load each MBK file you wish to cumulate into it, use option U - Utilities menu from the main menu and then option R - Read and Correct a backup file in the. Now you can begin the mammoth task of editing the cumulated file!
Identifying different kinds of entry
When using version 7 press F2 until the message at the top centre of the screen reads Ignore case/with wild
To locate all titles (or underlined or italicized entries enclosed in ^^) type
^\^<CTRL H>
This will produce on screen all the entries beginning with a caret.
To locate all subjects (or entries beginning with a lower-case letter) first of all press F2 so that the message at the top of the screen reads Search respects case and then type
^a
This will locate all the entries beginning with lower-case A.
If you have a fairly short index you can look for entries beginning with a series of letters, e.g.
^[abcd] or ^[a-z]
will look for all entries beginning with a, b, c and d (lower-case only)
To locate all names in entries you can use {,} as the search string. There may well be some non-name entries containing {,} but you can ignore them. If you want to refine the search further you can combine elements in a search. For example,
^[ABCD]?*{,}
will find all the entries beginning with upper-case A, B, C and D which also contain {,}.
Word RTF (rich text format) files
This is, we believe, the favoured format of the majority of publishers at present. An RTF file is in fact a coded ASCII file (and therefore possible to send as an email or as a series of emails in an emergency) and can be read into any version of Word and into the more recent Windows versions of WordPerfect and many other word processors. It can also be read into Pagemaker and other publishing systems without any alteration being necessary.
To make a Word RTF file of your index first of all press
P for Print
At the main Print menu press
C for Change and check layout
Press
CTRL L
and load in the file WORD-RTF.LAY (UK users) or RTF-TABS.LAY or RTF-STYL.LAY (US users). Now edit the file if you need to change the settings from those you see in front of you (for example, if you wish to have run-on subheadings, subheadings in page number order, header letters omitted, etc. etc.). It is important to point out that any previous settings you may have made to the layout will be cancelled when you load in the WORD-RTF.LAY, RTF-TABS.LAY or RTF-STYL.LAY file. When you have finished your alterations press RETURN to get back to the main Print menu. Now press
O for Optional Printing Features
and press
J - delete all printer and word processor replacement codes
and then
Y (to confirm the deletion)
This will ensure that your new settings will not be contaminated by any former word processor settings. (When you leave the print program the settings will revert to your original settings unless you choose to save them as your defaults.) Now press
CTRL L
and load in the file WORD-RTF.MWP (UK users) or RTF-COUR.MWP OR RTF-TIME.MWP (US users)
Check that the extension at option K reads RTF.
Now press <return> to go back to the main Print Menu. Now press
V
Do not be put off by the appearance of the file at this moment! What you are seeing is the coding necessary to make an RTF file. These codes will disappear and turn into indents, etc., when you load the file into Word or any of the other word processors compatible with RTF.
Now press F1 and then A (abandon). Now press
W - make a word processor file and follow the instructions on screen.
The file produced in this way will have the extension .RTF
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