Well, I tried uninstalling and re-installing Sky 8, and I still have the same problem. Kamm sent me the RTF of the file he made from my index, and his is sorted correctly -- except for all the names beginning with < (to be translated to ayn) at the top. I sent him my RTF with the sorting totally messed up.
He sent me a template again. When I load that template into the file, it sorts correctly. But as soon as I tell it to ignore the half circles for ayn and hamza, ALL the alphabetizing gets messed up. And not always in the same way.
He did give me a link now to download the newest version from the website, but I'm wondering if I should go back to 8.0.10 if that is possible. (The exe file I used for re-installing installed 8.0.13.) I've used these settings and these diacritics many times before, and I've never had any problem like this. Is there really no one else here using 8.0.13 having sorting problems?
Kamm thinks that it is unlikely that the program got messed up in the download. He says if it was so corrupted to not alphabetize, it shouldn't run at all.
I have to admit, I'm beginning to be tempted to learn to use Cindex. Going back to Sky 7 is NOT a viable option, as some have suggested. I've just finished one of three volumes of a huge work, and there are a gazillion names with diacritics. (6,000 records just in the Name Index) There is no way I'd be able to code that much.
I'm waiting to see what he says about going back to 8.0.10, and I'm going to manually fix the sorting in Word so I can get this to the client. But I can't start on Volume 2 of the big project until I'm sure the software is running OK.
BTW -- when you all reply to my questions, it appears that they come only to me and not to the group. I think that must be a setting in the group and I wish it could be changed. Others might benefit from seeing the replies.
Thanks.
AElfwine
(At least my problem with Microsoft got straightened out easily.)
You have a license for Sky. In case you don't have that written down somewhere handy, details about it are here: Help>About
Sometimes installations have hiccups (though most of the time they don't) so uninstalling is a great idea. I'd then install it with the most current .exe you have - and if it asks for license information, you'll be ready. You may still need to update it after you install it.
Uninstalling doesn't touch you sk8 files so don't worry about them.
Hope this fixes this problem that is so perplexing --
Deborah
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