Sorting a non-alphabetical index

[samrae]

Hi all,

I've got a bunch of notes in which I'm making indices of Bible references. I've set up a hierarchal index with Book>Chapter>Verse, which is working quite well for me. The only problem is that all the books sort alphabetically (which would normally be what you'd want). I'd like to sort them in the order they appear in the Bible. Is there any way to make this work?

Stated more generally, is there any way to make an index where the topics are not sorted alphabetically?

Thanks!

Sam Rae
(Using Nisus Writer Pro 1.4.1)

[martin]

Hi Sam- NWP always sorts generated indexes alphabetically, and as yet NWP hasn't read The Bible Joke aside, there aren't any sorting options, and don't think there's a good way for NWP to do what you want, sorry about that.

[Ruchama]

From my experience in such problems, the solution is to create a reference list which is alphabetic (easier than numeric, but numeric is also feasible) where books have a fixed (ordered) value, so do chapters etc. then you can prepare the index according to the list, and in the final stages of editing you replace the index with the actual name.
Mind you, a word processor is not the best software for such an operation, but a data base. There you could build the index in a way that is hidden for the lists.

[Hamid]

I don't know what your Index looks like, but as a workaround you can try this:

When you do 'Index As...', in the 'Index As Topic' box add a number and a space before the name of the book thus:

1 Genesis
2 Exodus
3 Leviticus
4 Numbers
etc.

Then, when you create an index, the books will sort numerically.
In the final copy of the index, delete the added number and space.

[samrae]

Martin: No worries. I thought that might be the case. Oh well! The indexing is still powerful and worthwhile


Ruchama & Hamid: Thanks for those suggestions. I think I'll go with the idea of having 01 Genesis, 02 Leviticus, etc. Not sure why I didn't think of that before—it should work fine.

Thanks all!