X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil t nil] [nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]) Date: Wed, 28 Feb 90 21:35:02 CET Reply-To: LaTeX-L Mailing list Sender: LaTeX-L Mailing list From: "Nelson H.F. Beebe" Subject: Re: more indexes etc. To: Rainer Schoepf Status: R X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 43 Malcolm Clark raises the question of multiple indexes, and trademark citations. These are important issues. Besides separate indexes for people, places, etc, some books may benefit from chapter indexes (e.g. many computer manuals do this -- see the VAX VMS manuals), or even minipage indexes (see Volumes B and D of Computers and Typesetting). I have always felt that a good index for a technical book is one of the most important parts of the book; before computers, authors could be excused for shirking the drudgery of such a task. With MakeIndex, there is much less excuse. I even got the University of Utah graduate thesis office to admit, and accept, indexes in theses, which had never been done here before. I discussed the trademark problem with Barbara Beeton (TUGboat editor) and Christina Thiele (TUG'88 and '89 conference editor) a year or two ago. It is (a) tedious for users to have to remember to cite trademark usage (as required by U.S. law, at least), and (b) very hard to get right. For example, who remembers whether some particular name has a patent, patent pending, patent applied for, copyright, trademark, or registered trademark? There is also considerable variation in spelling and capitalization; for example, UNIX is properly spelled entirely in caps or small caps, yet one regularly sees it incorrectly spelled as Unix, even in international publications. The availability of a TeX macro database of such words would be most helpful to authors and editors alike. Guidelines for the proper citation of trademarks et al would also be desirable (e.g. one footnote at the start that says "TeX is a trademark of ...; UNIX is a trademark of ....", or many such, each at the first point of reference). The choice between these might be a journal or book style option (e.g. some cite trademarks on the flyleaf; see the TUG'88 proceedings for an example). Automatic generation of a footnote or bibliographic note the first time a macro is referenced would be straightforward to do; it could also generate an entry in an external .tmk file. The latter would be useful to a journal editor who could merge the .tmk files from an entire issue to get the flyleaf trademark credits. -------