importing diacritics from different programs
Theresa Duran
Does anyone have experience collaborating with another indexer who was using a different indexing program? Specifically I’m wondering if you had any problems with diacritics not importing correctly.
I’m thinking of hiring a subcontractor to help with a large project. I prefer to use SKY 7, but I also own SKY 8. Since the subcontractor will likely not use v.7, I experimented with importing a delimited text file from v.8. The process worked well except for some diacritical characters appearing wonky—for example, “Sire[u769]n, Osvald” instead of “Sirén, Osvald.” I tried again, and this time I checked the box for “Write in UTF8 format” under Character Style Coding. The results were actually worse—"SireÌ n, Osvald.” Weirdly enough, when I open the .txtsky7 file with Notepad, the diacritics look fine.
I import delimited .txt files all the time, so I’m not sure why I’m having problems importing from SKY 8. If anyone has any insights, I’d love to hear them.
Thanks,
Theresa
Theresa Duran
Deborah suggested that I choose XML as an export option (see below). Although neither version lists XML in the user guide, you can indeed choose it as an export/import option. Unfortunately the diacritic results were even worse. This time I got Greek characters along with the other gobbledygook.
Thanks anyway, Deborah!
Theresa
From: Deborah Patton <ma...@pattonindexing.com>
Sent: Tuesday, May 6, 2025 11:09 AM
To: Theresa Duran <ther...@pacbell.net>
Subject: Re: [SKYIndexUsers] importing diacritics from different programs
Teresa,
See if one of the export options is XML which produces .ixml records. I believe that one preserves diacriticals across the board.
I haven't exported to and fro from Sky 7, but I have exported a lot to Cindex. I don't know that the XML function is still available to export to Cindex, but it sure ought to work for Sky 8 to 7. I don't have Sky 7 now to test it.
Let us know what happens --
Deborah
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Deborah Patton
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AElfwine Mischler
On May 6, 2025, at 8:48 PM, Theresa Duran <ther...@pacbell.net> wrote:
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Theresa Duran
Ælfwine, I took your diacritics webinar when you first presented it! But you raise a good point about the ASCII vs. Unicode system. I’ll have to think about whether it might be worth it to use v8 on this project. I’m a heavy user of macros, and they tend not to translate well to v8.
Thanks for weighing in!
Theresa
From: AElfwine Mischler <aelfwine...@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, May 6, 2025 12:10 PM
To: Theresa Duran <ther...@pacbell.net>
Cc: SKYIndexUsers <SkyInd...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [SKYIndexUsers] importing diacritics from different programs
I don’t have experience importing from one to the other, but perhaps the problem is that Sky 7 is based on ASCII characters and has a very limited number of diacritics available. Sky 8 is based on Unicode and it handles many more characters. I typically have letters with macrons above, dots or cedillas below, and some others in my work.
Theresa Duran
Deborah,
None of the diacritic-related entries in my experiment involved translations. The characters were things like é that don’t usually require translations in v7. I can copy/paste most accented characters directly into v7 or import them within a Word-generated .txt file.
Theresa
From: Deborah Patton <ma...@pattonindexing.com>
Sent: Tuesday, May 6, 2025 12:08 PM
To: Theresa Duran <ther...@pacbell.net>
Cc: 'SKYIndexUsers' <SkyInd...@googlegroups.com>
Barry Campbell
$H1_heading{tab}locator string
$H2_subheading{tab}$L_locator string
$H3_subsub{tab}$L_locator string
etc.
Locator label is not required in the absence of a locator.
Export to Word/RTF as a set-out index.
Use IndexConvert Word macro, now free for the first 90 days with conversion of up to one million records in the first 30 days, decreasing over time.
Select your export from Macrex, Cindex, Sky v7 or v8, or whichever suits.
Run Preprocess
Run Audit, this is interactive. Label errors where found.
Make adjustments. Could include separating cross reference strings, or errors in the original index.
For a tab delimited export...
Load the appropriate Unicode or translation file.
Select Concatenate, then Styles, then Export.
For Cindex v3 or v4...
Select Export for ixml export.
For Sky v8...
Select Export for IDEX export.
This process supports conversion from any indexing software to any other. It's fast, and very accurate.
Where diacritics are missing in a translation file a report is automatically created with recommendations for new entries. Make the changes and repeat the export.
See www.indexbase.co.uk for details and downloads.
Barry Campbell
Sent: 06 May 2025 18:48
To: 'SKYIndexUsers' <SkyInd...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [SKYIndexUsers] importing diacritics from different programs