I suppose there's only a limited number of people who use Toolbox now (since SIL now encourages everyone to use Flex, though I personally find Toolbox very versatile).
For that reason, maybe I'll be the only one to ever use these notes I'll make here.
There's a lot to be said for using publishing software rather than MS Word to turn a lexicon into a book. Within a single publishing file, you can lay out your introductory pages, the actual lexicon and your reverse glossary, set in any illustrations (easily and reliably, unlike in Word), and get a uniform treatment of all your running headers and footers. Then print the whole thing as PDF, or create an "imposition" version for booklet folding and binding.
In this scenario, Word is but a stepping-stone, used to get the MDF output which you then copy-paste into flowing text frames within the publishing software. I used Adobe InDesign (ancient CS3 because I have it), but if I'd had more time to get up to speed on it, I'd have used Affinity Publisher (today's low-cost classy publishing software).
The thing to note is that the publishing software is, like Word, also using the styles that come from MDF, and in the same general way as Word does: paragraph vs character styles. So whatever MDF comes out with in terms of fonts, line spacing, indents and so on, these can (and will need to) be set up again in the publishing software (which then overrides the MDF -- or Word -- settings).
The lexicon I'm producing as a booklet (a compiled series of smaller lexicons of plants, birds, fish, etc.) is pretty simple, in that it doesn't use many Toolbox fields. So it's not generating many paragraph/character styles. I found that in my MDF output there were only three paragraph styles governing the character styles:
- Entry Paragraph (governs the text within each entry)
- Indented Paragraph (governs the text of subentries)
- Letter Parapgraph1 (governs the alphabetic dividers)
After setting up line spacing and indents within these paragraph styles, then you set up fonts within the more numerous character styles. (P.S., there was no need in my case to modify any settings within Toolbox database properties.)
This is the initial set-up process for automating the publishing software. But then, as I revise the wording of the text, I can copy-paste new iterations of the MDF output into the publishing software with a single "ctrl-c", and it all reappears fully formatted again, voila.
Overall, its been a perfect success, and my "published" version is now under my full control, able to completely break out from the old MDF look. I'm attracted to lexicography from earlier decades anyway, which, with this process, I am able to fully emulate or riff upon, with only the work of initial setup.
Stay well Karen, all the best until next time.
Ian