This is not necessarily a LaTeX-only question, and it is a bit open-ended, but given that this community is clearly very detail-oriented, and it is a general-interest question, I think that this is a good place to ask this question.
I'm currently finishing up writing a 700-page mathematical text book*, and the time has come to create an index. I was wondering if you guys have any ideas on guidelines on how to create an index. I will be using makeindex (unless anyone has a better alternative; I'm definitely open for suggestions).
I have a decently clear idea on what keywords to put in there, but I have some remaining issues:
- What are the rules for making subentries? For example, should "open set" appear in the index as "open set", or as "set -> open"? (
set!openin makeindex syntax). - What about using "see ...". For example, I have an index entry "Linear optimization model". It make sense to have two entries: "linear -> optimization model", and "optimization model -> linear". Should one of them refer to the other using a "see ..."? Or is it preferred to just refer to the same page number from both entries?
Any other thoughts are also very welcome.
*) In LaTeX, obviously. I'm taking the liberty here to thank many of you here at tex.stackexchange.com that have answered my questions; the community will definitely be mentioned in the acknowledgements.
imakeidx. Take into account also that an index is one of the most fundamental parts of a book; a good index is a phenomenal resource; a poor index is disastrous.\index{open set}or\index{set!open}it depends on how many othersetsub-entries you'll likely to have. If it's the only one, I'd leave it as a main entry. With regard to cross-referencing the OSM recommends not using a cross-reference if the "see blah" part takes up more space than the location list.