[XeTeX] MakeIndex

Jonathan Kew jonathan_kew at sil.org
Wed Jun 14 15:37:58 CEST 2006


On 14 Jun 2006, at 2:23 pm, Yves Codet wrote:
>
> Now more work for Jonathan :) Since XeTeX is meant to deal with all  
> possible scripts, similar problems will often arise. Should there  
> not be a mechanism allowing to set the order of index entries?

Ah, I can easily escape that one.... this is a clear example of an  
SEP*. :)

Indexes are not created or sorted by xetex (or any other tex  
processor). This is the job of external programs (such as makeindex)  
or humans; all a tex engine typically does is write material to an  
auxiliary file as it is encountered in the document. This is then  
processed by makeindex to create the actual index. xetex doesn't  
control the order of entries, it just prints what it is given.

Your basic problem, I expect, is that makeindex is not adequately  
internationalized or Unicode-aware. I don't know if it is currently  
being developed/maintained, though, so don't know what the likelihood  
of getting this fixed may be.

Meanwhile, it should be possible to post-process the index generated  
by makeindex to sort it into the proper order, but finding an  
efficient way to do this may require some text-processing/programming  
expertise....

JK

*SEP: Somebody Else's Problem



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