Creating "See" Entries in the Index

When publishing books to one of the print outputs you can include "cross-references" in your index. The cross-reference, or See entry, is used to point the reader to other entries in your index. You can add entries so the user finds additional content that could be relevant to their search, or you can use the entries to incorporate common keywords into the index. For example, a user might look for references for updating an object under "modifying", but in your index the topics will only be found if the user looks under "changing". In this case you could add an entry that says Modifying, See Changing.

In Author-it the "cross-reference" is created by dragging an Index Entry object (from the object or folder list) into the Entry Links tab of another Index Entry object. In this example, the index would show ACME X1000 Pro-Tekt Case 13, See Replaceable Parts.

Changing the cross reference text

By default the text used in the cross reference is See. However, using a variable this can be changed to See Also, or it can be localized. The variable is assigned at library level, but you can assign the variable at book level if you want to use different values for your books.

To Use a Variable to Modify the Cross Reference Index Entry Text:

1. Open the library in Author-it Administrator.
2. Choose Variables > Maintain Variables.
3. Create a variable with the name AIT_SEE_ALSO_TEXT.
4. Add the cross-reference text as the value. Ensure you include trailing space(s) after the text as they are not automatically included when using the variable to modify the reference.
5. Save your changes.

When you publish your book the cross-reference text will be used in the index.

Localizing the cross reference

You can use the variable to localize the cross-reference text in your target libraries. Create the variable in your target library then add the localized text as the value, for example, in a French target library you might add the value Voir (followed by a trailing space).