Indexing and the Army

ptc-3050150 · ‎Jan 11, 2010

Anyone have experience with creating indexes with the Army/LOGSA stylesheets?

I've inserted a number of index refs that the DTD allows, but those are not the index tags Arbortext looks for...and I'm looking for a pointer on where to go from here.

I'm assuming I'll have to write a parser and run it on a flattened book then add the PDF'd index pages later...but I'd sure prefer not to.

Thanks in advance for pointing me to the starting line...

LynnHales · ‎Jan 11, 2010

Johh,

Which version of the Army DTD and which style sheets are you talking about?

Lynn
---- John Jarrett <-> wrote:
> Anyone have experience with creating indexes with the Army/LOGSA stylesheets?
> I've inserted a number of index refs that the DTD allows, but those are not the index tags Arbortext looks for...and I'm looking for a pointer on where to go from here.
> I'm assuming I'll have to write a parser and run it on a flattened book then add the PDF'd index pages later...but I'd sure prefer not to.
> Thanks in advance for pointing me to the starting line...
>
>
>
> ----------

ptc-3050150 · ‎Jan 11, 2010

Army-supplied LOGSA production.dtd plus stylesheets v1.5 in this instance, although I have 1.2-1.5 installed.

Arbortext version 5.4

Product is to be XML TM with PDF print format.

I've handled half a dozen bugs/conflicts between v1.5 and 5.4 to get it mostly working so far. Now I'm being asked about the indexing functions. The -23 manual will have 3000 work packages - what a mess to do by hand. The word this morning from LOGSA is that they still code indexes by hand.

Thanks,

John T. Jarrett CDT
Tech Writer II, Tech Pubs, ILS,Land & Armaments/Global Tactical Systems

T832.673.2147 ext 1147 | M 512.736.7031 | -
BAE Systems, 5000 I-10 West, Sealy, Texas USA 77474
www.baesystems.com

naglists · ‎Jan 11, 2010

Arbortext can build custom indexes using tags for index entries and/or that
are just part of the content. But maybe there's something more mysterious /
restrictive going on in the standard dtd/stylesheets you're talking about.
Are you allowed to modify the stylesheet? Is it FOSI? Look for e-i-c's for
beginning <ix... often=" (sometimes?)=" grouped=" near=" the=" end=" of=" the=" e-i-c's<br="/>rather than in alphabetical order.

On Mon, Jan 11, 2010 at 10:10 AM, Jarrett, John T. (US SSA) <
-> wrote:

> Army-supplied LOGSA production.dtd plus stylesheets v1.5 in this instance,
> although I have 1.2-1.5 installed.
>
> Arbortext version 5.4
>
> Product is to be XML TM with PDF print format.
>
> I've handled half a dozen bugs/conflicts between v1.5 and 5.4 to get it
> mostly working so far. Now I'm being asked about the indexing functions. The
> -23 manual will have 3000 work packages - what a mess to do by hand. The
> word this morning from LOGSA is that they still code indexes by hand.
>
> Thanks,
>
> John T. Jarrett CDT
> Tech Writer II, Tech Pubs, ILS, Land & Armaments/Global Tactical Systems
>
> T 832.673.2147 ext 1147 | M 512.736.7031 | -
> BAE Systems, 5000 I-10 West, Sealy, Texas USA 77474
> www.baesystems.com
>
>

ptc-3050150 · ‎Jan 11, 2010

I'll do my best to answer your questions 😉

The final output is to go through the XSL-FO stylesheets, not the FOSI.

The Mil-Spec the DTD is based on uses (of course) totally different tags for its indexing, but they are close enough theoretically I could edit the DTD (with the Arbortext tags) and the stylesheet (hmmm, don't see a stylesheet for an index...may have to write one) to convert back to LOGSA tags...but I don't see how I can tell Arbortext to use a custom Index stylesheet.

XML tag in a document:

id ID #IMPLIED
indxref IDREF #IMPLIED
ref1 CDATA #IMPLIED
ref2 CDATA #IMPLIED
ref3 CDATA #IMPLIED
ref4 CDATA #IMPLIED >

Here's a sample tag in the document:

<indxref ref1="Safety" ref2="First" aid"=" ref3="Cuts" and=" scratches"=">

The ref# is hierarchical just like Arbortext's appear to be (i.e., this would be listed under S - Safety, subhead First Aid, then Cuts and Scratches with a page number).

Here's an oversimplified output example ("wp" refers to work package - an individual chapter or set of instructions in these types of manuals):

<aindx>
<title>ALPHABETIC INDEX</title>
<col.title>Subject</col.title>
<col.title>WP Sequence #<col.title>
<alphaindx>A</alphaindx>
<indexentry>
<title>Accessory Section</title>
<wpno wpref="access_sect"/">
<pageno>15</pageno>
</indexentry>
<alphaindx>B</alphaindx>
<indexentry>
<title>Back Cover</title>
<wpno wpref="backcover"/">
<pageno>285</pageno>
</indexentry>
</aindx>

John T. Jarrett CDT
Tech Writer II, Tech Pubs, ILS, Land & Armaments/Global Tactical Systems

T 832.673.2147 ext 1147 | M 512.736.7031 | -<">mailto:->
BAE Systems, 5000 I-10 West, Sealy, Texas USA 77474
www.baesystems.com

LynnHales · ‎Jan 11, 2010

I can almost guarantee you if you are using the LOGSA provided FO it WILL NOT do an index.

Personally I've been trying to get the index requirement removed from 40051 as it is a nightmare to deal with in markup, in the Army's paperless delivery, it is superfluous (you have full text search available in the PDF).

Lynn
---- "Jarrett wrote:
> I'll do my best to answer your questions 😉
>
> The final output is to go through the XSL-FO stylesheets, not the FOSI.
>
> The Mil-Spec the DTD is based on uses (of course) totally different tags for its indexing, but they are close enough theoretically I could edit the DTD (with the Arbortext tags) and the stylesheet (hmmm, don't see a stylesheet for an index...may have to write one) to convert back to LOGSA tags...but I don't see how I can tell Arbortext to use a custom Index stylesheet.
>
> XML tag in a document:
>
>
> > id ID #IMPLIED
> indxref IDREF #IMPLIED
> ref1 CDATA #IMPLIED
> ref2 CDATA #IMPLIED
> ref3 CDATA #IMPLIED
> ref4 CDATA #IMPLIED >
>
> Here's a sample tag in the document:
>
> <indxref ref1="Safety" ref2="First" aid"=" ref3="Cuts" and=" scratches"=">
>
> The ref# is hierarchical just like Arbortext's appear to be (i.e., this would be listed under S - Safety, subhead First Aid, then Cuts and Scratches with a page number).
>
> Here's an oversimplified output example ("wp" refers to work package - an individual chapter or set of instructions in these types of manuals):
>
> <aindx>
> <title>ALPHABETIC INDEX</title>
> <col.title>Subject</col.title>
> <col.title>WP Sequence #<col.title>
> <alphaindx>A</alphaindx>
> <indexentry>
> <title>Accessory Section</title>
> <wpno wpref="access_sect"/">
> <pageno>15</pageno>
> </indexentry>
> <alphaindx>B</alphaindx>
> <indexentry>
> <title>Back Cover</title>
> <wpno wpref="backcover"/">
> <pageno>285</pageno>
> </indexentry>
> </aindx>
>
> John T. Jarrett CDT
> Tech Writer II, Tech Pubs, ILS, Land & Armaments/Global Tactical Systems
>
> T 832.673.2147 ext 1147 | M 512.736.7031 | -<">mailto:->
> BAE Systems, 5000 I-10 West, Sealy, Texas USA 77474
> www.baesystems.com

ClayHelberg · ‎Jan 11, 2010

Hi John--

You can probably get this to work by applying the appropriate transformation to the source index XML (<indxref>) in your XSL-FO stylesheet to generate Arbortext indexing extension markup. Full details are available at

where $ref-id is a unique ID, possibly based on the generate-id() function or some other ID's embedded in the document markup.

Then for the end-of-book index you need to collect all the index entries and put them in the form:

<atifo:index>

<atifo:index-primary>Safety</atifo:index-primary>
<atifo:index...

Follow the directions in the link above, and with a little tweaking you should be able to get a back-of-book index from your markup using XSL-FO.

--Clay