This is the sixth in a series of blog postings on the American Society for Indexing’s (ASI) Virtual Conference, held on Saturday, May 2nd. The Annual Conference in Raleigh, North Carolina was postponed until 2021 because of COVID-19.
Held on Zoom, the sixth and final session, Macros for Indexer Profitability, was presented by Gale Rhoades. She defined macros as a collection of keystrokes or commands for a program, such as Microsoft Word or dedicated indexing software. The purpose of macros is to manage repetitive or frequently used actions. Reusable, macros can be transferred from one document file to another within the same program.
She demonstrated the internal Microsoft Word macro “InitCleanup.” This macro prepares a PDF file of a previous index, which she imported into Macrex, the dedicated software she uses for indexing. PDF files can be easily converted into Word and then edited for use in dedicated indexing software. The macro performs dozens of operations, including many find/replace occurrences, yet takes only a few minutes. She said it is worth the usually brief time needed to set up a macro. All dedicated indexing software programs have the functionality to create macros.
She also demonstrated the external macro set Megabit Macros, created by Margaret Berson. Megabit Macros operates with the engine Macro Express, both of which must be purchased in order to work. The indexer highlights the chosen text portion in the open PDF of the manuscript page proofs and presses the appropriate keyboard shortcut. Megabit Macros is especially helpful when entering names from the PDF into the index.
This concludes my discussion of the Virtual Conference. For more information about the services provided by the author of this blog, see the Stellar Searches LLC website, http://www.stellarsearches.com