I have a main heading that isn’t combining properly. How do I fix it?

Let’s say you have the main and subheadings (no locators shown):

“New York”, best seller list

New York, parks and recreation

“New York”, review of

What you are expecting in your index is (underscores show indention):

“New York”

___best seller list

___review of

New York

___parks and recreation

What you get, though, is this:

“New York”

___best seller list

New York

___parks and recreation

“New York”

___review of

The reason this happens

The quotes in the above main headings are ignored for sorting purposes. That means that all of the main headings have EXACTLY the same sort key. The only difference in their sorting becomes the subheadings. It just so happens that those subheadings put the non-quoted New York between the two quoted New Yorks. As SKY Index formats the index it only combines headings that are EXACTLY the same. Since the non-quoted New York is different a new main heading is started. When the quoted New York shows up, another new main heading is started.

How do I fix it?

The way to fix this is to make the quoted and non-quoted entries different in ‘sort’ order so that they appear together as they are parsed for output. You do this by adding hidden text to the end of one of those main entries. For instance you could add a hidden ‘a’ at the end of all non-quoted New York main headings. The Hide Text command is available from the Format menu and is applied in the same manner as bold or italic would be.

Author: Kamm Schreiner