[OS X TeX] Indexes

[Morten Høgholm]

On Fri, 16 Dec 2005 15:34:07 +0100, Simon Spiegel <simon at simifilm.ch>  
wrote:

> Being not an undergraduate indexer, I don't really understand what  
> you're saying. Maybe this is just a language problem… What I want is  
> some sort of "index" (for lack of a better word) where one can easily  
> find names, film titles, important terms etc. Maybe this is what you  
> mean by concordance… Of course, this can't be fully automatized, but  
> some sort of in advance preparation would certainly be possible IMO.

I think William means this:

Q: Why do I need an indexer? Can’t the computer create an index?

A: To exactly the same degree that a word processor can write the book.  
Indexes are creative works,
requiring human intellect and analysis.

Q: Isn’t full-text search sufficient?

A: Only to the extent that the reader searches for exactly what appears in  
the text. In essence, the
reader has to know it’s there before looking for it, and even then won’t  
find synonyms or concepts not
explicitly spelled out.

Computers can no more replace a human indexer than they can replace the  
author of the work being indexed.

Thise quotes taken from <http://www.mindspring.com/~infodex/>.
-- 
Morten
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