[Peter T. Daniels]

(1) Eliminate the second period in a single Find-Replace operation at
the very end.

(2) Don't type two spaces after a period.

On Jun 16, 3:30*pm, wrote:
A Word 2002 indexing newbie asks:

Word has the great facility to substitute desired text instead of page
numbers in an index entry. *This lets you create cross-references. *To
specify this line in the index:

* * Mencken, H. L. *See Authors

you say:

* * {XE "Mencken, H.L" \t " See Authors"}

But there are three problems:

1. Word automatically adds a period after the base entry. *So if you
punctuate the string -correctly-:

* * {XE "Mencken, H. L." \t " See Authors"}

then Word misspells its own document:

* * Mencken, H. L.. *See Authors

namely, with -two- periods.

You must then go thru your entire doc, as I had to do, and remove the
period after all terminating initials in -some- instances (in {XE}
index entries), but leave them in others (live text). *This is
hideous.

2. Word also adds a space. *So far, that hasn't a problem for me. *But
since I'm of the "two spaces after a period" school, I want two spaces
after "Mencken, H. L." *Hence my initial extra space in substring "
See ..."

3. Because of the default period, you are hence stylistically required
to capitalize your x-ref term -- in my case "See".

Yeah, well, capitalizing a cross-reference term looks like hell. *And
Microsoft ought to know that. *It is tedious on the eyes to have to
see propercase "See"'s populating your index.

And guess what? *it is unprofessional. *Take for example David
McCullough's new book about Americans in Paris. *His cross-reference
style is:

* * Mencken, H. L., see Authors

Much easier on the eyes.

Conversely, you surely don't want the following (changing the example
to a terminate in a full name to force illustration of Word's
perversity:

* * Williams, Ted. [ ]see Baseball

Spelling "see" as lowercase, after a period looks equally bad.

***

So, how do you tell Word either to use a different default symbol than
a period with its \t switch; or else call off its smarter-than-thou,
consequently unacceptable, period entirely?

Or, is there a better way to create x-ref entries in an index I don't
know about?

Thanks -very- much.

***