sorting problem

[Guest]

I have a list of topics with subtopics, initially not sorted. When I use sort
the program generally complied, i.e., take main topics alphabetically and
(indented) subtopics also alphabetically within main tpics, BUT every now and
then it just makes a plain mistake, e.g., it takes a subtopic and lists it by
itself or it takes a subtopic and lists it under a main topic different from
what it is in the presorting list. Error rate about 10% - previously had no
problems.

Thanks.

 

[Robert M. Franz (RMF)]

Hello George

I have a list of topics with subtopics, initially not sorted. When I use sort
the program generally complied, i.e., take main topics alphabetically and
(indented) subtopics also alphabetically within main tpics, BUT every now and
then it just makes a plain mistake, e.g., it takes a subtopic and lists it by
itself or it takes a subtopic and lists it under a main topic different from
what it is in the presorting list. Error rate about 10% - previously had no
problems.

Could you describe the structure of your entries a bit? Are you dealing
with a table? Or with paragraphs, where topics/subtopics are separated
by a special character? ISTR that there is a maximum string length that
Word takes into account when sorting, but we need to know more to judge
whether this could be a case here.

Greetings from good old Europe
[And say Hi to retired Prof. Marti when you see him ]
Robert

 

[Guest]

This is in response to Robert Franz. Actually I am working on a subject
index for a book. As I go through the manuscript I set up main topics and
sometimes indented under them one or more subtopics - none of these entries
are particularly long (1-5 words) so It looks like this:

Main entry
Subentry i
Subentry 2
Main entry 2
Subentry

In the past I have had no problem for "sort" to alphbetize the Main entries
and then under each to alphabetize the subentries. What has happened now is
that a subentry would float on it own and a subentry from one main entry
would appear as a sub entry under another main entry. As I said it happens
seldon but it is consistent - the same error occurs each time I sort the
material.

Thank you for any comments.
--
George Mandler
Retired Professor
U Calif, San Diego

Hello George

I have a list of topics with subtopics, initially not sorted. When I use sort
the program generally complied, i.e., take main topics alphabetically and
(indented) subtopics also alphabetically within main tpics, BUT every now and
then it just makes a plain mistake, e.g., it takes a subtopic and lists it by
itself or it takes a subtopic and lists it under a main topic different from
what it is in the presorting list. Error rate about 10% - previously had no
problems.

Could you describe the structure of your entries a bit? Are you dealing
with a table? Or with paragraphs, where topics/subtopics are separated
by a special character? ISTR that there is a maximum string length that
Word takes into account when sorting, but we need to know more to judge
whether this could be a case here.

Greetings from good old Europe
[And say Hi to retired Prof. Marti when you see him ]
Robert
--
/"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign | MS
\ / | MVP
X Against HTML | for
/ \ in e-mail & news | Word

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Instead of doing this manually, why not generate an index automatically? See
http://word.mvps.org/faqs/formatting/Createindex.htm

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

This is in response to Robert Franz. Actually I am working on a subject
index for a book. As I go through the manuscript I set up main topics and
sometimes indented under them one or more subtopics - none of these entries
are particularly long (1-5 words) so It looks like this:

Main entry
Subentry i
Subentry 2
Main entry 2
Subentry

In the past I have had no problem for "sort" to alphbetize the Main entries
and then under each to alphabetize the subentries. What has happened now is
that a subentry would float on it own and a subentry from one main entry
would appear as a sub entry under another main entry. As I said it happens
seldon but it is consistent - the same error occurs each time I sort the
material.

Thank you for any comments.
--
George Mandler
Retired Professor
U Calif, San Diego

Hello George

I have a list of topics with subtopics, initially not sorted. When I use sort
the program generally complied, i.e., take main topics alphabetically and
(indented) subtopics also alphabetically within main tpics, BUT every now and
then it just makes a plain mistake, e.g., it takes a subtopic and lists it by
itself or it takes a subtopic and lists it under a main topic different from
what it is in the presorting list. Error rate about 10% - previously had no
problems.

Could you describe the structure of your entries a bit? Are you dealing
with a table? Or with paragraphs, where topics/subtopics are separated
by a special character? ISTR that there is a maximum string length that
Word takes into account when sorting, but we need to know more to judge
whether this could be a case here.

Greetings from good old Europe
[And say Hi to retired Prof. Marti when you see him ]
Robert
--
/"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign | MS
\ / | MVP
X Against HTML | for
/ \ in e-mail & news | Word

 

[Guest]

Thank you Suzanne for the suggestion - I had brielfy looked before and now
did again in depth, but for separate name and subjects indexes and for a
subject index that has few 1 or 2-term entries, mostly summary statements,
"indexing" becomes cumbersone. But thanks for the suggestion.
--
George Mandler
Retired Professor
U Calif, San Diego

Instead of doing this manually, why not generate an index automatically? See
http://word.mvps.org/faqs/formatting/Createindex.htm

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

This is in response to Robert Franz. Actually I am working on a subject
index for a book. As I go through the manuscript I set up main topics and
sometimes indented under them one or more subtopics - none of these entries
are particularly long (1-5 words) so It looks like this:

Main entry
Subentry i
Subentry 2
Main entry 2
Subentry

In the past I have had no problem for "sort" to alphbetize the Main entries
and then under each to alphabetize the subentries. What has happened now is
that a subentry would float on it own and a subentry from one main entry
would appear as a sub entry under another main entry. As I said it happens
seldon but it is consistent - the same error occurs each time I sort the
material.

Thank you for any comments.
--
George Mandler
Retired Professor
U Calif, San Diego

Hello George

ucsd wrote:
I have a list of topics with subtopics, initially not sorted. When I use sort
the program generally complied, i.e., take main topics alphabetically and
(indented) subtopics also alphabetically within main tpics, BUT every now and
then it just makes a plain mistake, e.g., it takes a subtopic and lists it by
itself or it takes a subtopic and lists it under a main topic different from
what it is in the presorting list. Error rate about 10% - previously had no
problems.

Could you describe the structure of your entries a bit? Are you dealing
with a table? Or with paragraphs, where topics/subtopics are separated
by a special character? ISTR that there is a maximum string length that
Word takes into account when sorting, but we need to know more to judge
whether this could be a case here.

Greetings from good old Europe
[And say Hi to retired Prof. Marti when you see him ]
Robert
--
/"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign | MS
\ / | MVP
X Against HTML | for
/ \ in e-mail & news | Word

 

[Guest]

Thank you Suzanne for the suggestion - I had brielfy looked before and now
did again in depth, but for separate name and subjects indexes and for a
subject index that has few 1 or 2-term entries, mostly summary statements,
"indexing" becomes cumbersone. But thanks for the suggestion.
--
George Mandler
Retired Professor
U Calif, San Diego

Instead of doing this manually, why not generate an index automatically? See
http://word.mvps.org/faqs/formatting/Createindex.htm

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

This is in response to Robert Franz. Actually I am working on a subject
index for a book. As I go through the manuscript I set up main topics and
sometimes indented under them one or more subtopics - none of these entries
are particularly long (1-5 words) so It looks like this:

Main entry
Subentry i
Subentry 2
Main entry 2
Subentry

In the past I have had no problem for "sort" to alphbetize the Main entries
and then under each to alphabetize the subentries. What has happened now is
that a subentry would float on it own and a subentry from one main entry
would appear as a sub entry under another main entry. As I said it happens
seldon but it is consistent - the same error occurs each time I sort the
material.

Thank you for any comments.
--
George Mandler
Retired Professor
U Calif, San Diego

Hello George

ucsd wrote:
I have a list of topics with subtopics, initially not sorted. When I use sort
the program generally complied, i.e., take main topics alphabetically and
(indented) subtopics also alphabetically within main tpics, BUT every now and
then it just makes a plain mistake, e.g., it takes a subtopic and lists it by
itself or it takes a subtopic and lists it under a main topic different from
what it is in the presorting list. Error rate about 10% - previously had no
problems.

Could you describe the structure of your entries a bit? Are you dealing
with a table? Or with paragraphs, where topics/subtopics are separated
by a special character? ISTR that there is a maximum string length that
Word takes into account when sorting, but we need to know more to judge
whether this could be a case here.

Greetings from good old Europe
[And say Hi to retired Prof. Marti when you see him ]
Robert
--
/"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign | MS
\ / | MVP
X Against HTML | for
/ \ in e-mail & news | Word

 

[Robert M. Franz (RMF)]

Hello George

Thank you Suzanne for the suggestion - I had brielfy looked before and now
did again in depth, but for separate name and subjects indexes and for a
subject index that has few 1 or 2-term entries, mostly summary statements,
"indexing" becomes cumbersone. But thanks for the suggestion.

Hmm, I don't see more effort in defining the XE fields (index entries)
than in writing the index manually, _especially_ if the index contains
few entries only. How many page numbers are you listing per entry? If
the answer is (almost always) "one", then this is the most simple index
you can get.

But you want to do it manually and sort, so let's see.

<quote>
Main entry
Subentry i
Subentry 2
Main entry 2
Subentry
</quote>

Are you having one paragraph per main entry (i.e., you end a line with
SHIFT-Return until before the next main entry -- or all lines with a
normal RETURN?

Greetings
Robert

 

[Robert M. Franz (RMF)]

Hello George

Thank you Suzanne for the suggestion - I had brielfy looked before and now
did again in depth, but for separate name and subjects indexes and for a
subject index that has few 1 or 2-term entries, mostly summary statements,
"indexing" becomes cumbersone. But thanks for the suggestion.

Hmm, I don't see more effort in defining the XE fields (index entries)
than in writing the index manually, _especially_ if the index contains
few entries only. How many page numbers are you listing per entry? If
the answer is (almost always) "one", then this is the most simple index
you can get.

But you want to do it manually and sort, so let's see.

<quote>
Main entry
Subentry i
Subentry 2
Main entry 2
Subentry
</quote>

Are you having one paragraph per main entry (i.e., you end a line with
SHIFT-Return until before the next main entry -- or all lines with a
normal RETURN?

Greetings
Robert

 

[Guest]

All lines with a normal return, e.g., from main antry to sub or from sub to
sub.

BTW - you said you are in Europe - I am currently in London

 

[Guest]

All lines with a normal return, e.g., from main antry to sub or from sub to
sub.

BTW - you said you are in Europe - I am currently in London

 

[Robert M. Franz (RMF)]

All lines with a normal return, e.g., from main antry to sub or from sub to
sub.

Hmm, and the paragraph of subentries are indented? I don't really see
how Word will sort those at all, in that case (I mean, how it would know
to keep them under each main entry ...).

BTW - you said you are in Europe - I am currently in London

Greetings from Switzerland
Robert

 

[Robert M. Franz (RMF)]

All lines with a normal return, e.g., from main antry to sub or from sub to
sub.

Hmm, and the paragraph of subentries are indented? I don't really see
how Word will sort those at all, in that case (I mean, how it would know
to keep them under each main entry ...).

BTW - you said you are in Europe - I am currently in London

Greetings from Switzerland
Robert

 

[Guest]

I dont know how it is done, but usually it works fine

George

 

[Guest]

I dont know how it is done, but usually it works fine

George

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Are you using Table | Sort or some kind of add-in?

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Are you using Table | Sort or some kind of add-in?

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[Guest]

Using Table and then Sort

George

 

[Guest]

Using Table and then Sort

George

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

And are you sorting in Outline view? If not, are you sure you don't have
line breaks between main entries and subentries? I can't imagine any other
way it would work.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

And are you sorting in Outline view? If not, are you sure you don't have
line breaks between main entries and subentries? I can't imagine any other
way it would work.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.