[OS X TeX] Writing an abstract book and custom index

[Ross Moore]

Hi Steffun,

On 25/03/2004, at 8:13 PM, Steffen Lund Hokland wrote:

> Dear All,
>
> I'm currently helping my Mother (if nothing else, I'm at least a good 
> son...) writing an abstract book for a conference she's arranging. 
> I've poked around CTAN and c.t.t for either a suitable class, or some 
> 'manual', but haven't had any luck. Each entry should look as:
>
> \customcounter{Title of abstract} %The actual title should then be 
> something like: I17 This a Title on Some Bio-stuff where 'I17' is the 
> counter value (only the number is incremented, the 'I' means 
> 'Invited')%
>
> Authors.
> Affiliations.
>
> Abstracttext
>
> Acknowledgments
>
> My idea is to have the abstracts in separate .tex files, and \include 
> them in the master document. The

Don't use \include --- that would force a new page for each abstract,
it is sufficient to use the simple \input command.

> tex-files would then contain some macro:
> \newabstract{Title}{author}{affiliations}{text}{thanks}
> All the formatting issues will be addressed in the macro-definition....
> Is this an obviously stupid approach?

Not at all.
In fact it is by far the best approach.
Consider having the (relative) location of the file to be \input
as one of the arguments to your \newabstract commands.


>
> The main problem is that I'd like to make an author index, which 
> refers not to the page number, but the abstract number(s) containing 
> the author name, e.g.
>
> Foo, John I34, P17
>
> (where I34 and P17 are two different custom counters referring to 
> Invited no. 34 and Poster no. 17, respectively). Is this possible at 
> all, without getting deep and dirty in Plain TeX?

Plain or LaTeX is not the issue.

>
> Thanks for any help, and sorry for the somewhat erratic post.

Have a look at this example:

    find the  "Book of Abstracts" link at  http://www.iciam.org/

That was done with pdflatex in a way similar to what you have described
  --- indeed there is quite a bit more structure to it.
See whether it, and its two indexes, match the kind of thing that you 
want.

If so, and you want to learn more about how it was done, then we can 
discuss
the structure in more detail, off-list.


Hope this helps,

	Ross


>
> Steffen
>
> "Professor Goddard does not know the relation between action and 
> reaction and the need to have something better than a vacuum against 
> which to react. He seems to lack the basic knowledge ladled out daily 
> in high schools."
> -- 1921 New York Times editorial about Robert Goddard's revolutionary 
> rocket work. 
> "Correction: It is now definitely established that a rocket can 
> function in a vaccuum. The 'Times' regrets the error."
> -- NY times, July 1969. 
> ___________________________________________
> Steffen Lund Hokland, MSc.
> Research Assistant
>
> The MR-Research Centre
> Clinical Inst.
> Aarhus University Hospital
> Skejby Hospital
> DK-8200 Aarhus
> Denmark
>
> Phone Office	: 	+45 89495264
> Phone Home	:	+45 86166608
> Phone Mobile	:	+45 61307461
>
> e-mail		:	hokland at mr.au.dk
> ___________________________________________
>
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> Please see <http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/> for list
> guidelines, information, and LaTeX/TeX resources.
>
>
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ross Moore                                         ross at maths.mq.edu.au
Mathematics Department                             office: E7A-419
Macquarie University                               tel: +61 +2 9850 8955
Sydney, Australia                                  fax: +61 +2 9850 8114
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