Two-column index

[Combs, Richard]

Niels Fanøe wrote: 
 
> I have a book consisting of quite a number of documents. Some 
> of these documents have an index of their own (for historical 
> reasons... And because making a book-wide index wouldn't make 
> any sense).

I'm having trouble imagining what kind of book has chapter- or section-level indexes, but none at the book level. If these sections/parts of the book are so disparate, then why combine them into one book (especially one that's continuously page-numbered, as your later comment suggests)? Is this design really optimal for your readers? It doesn't seem to be optimal for you. :-)
 
> The text flow in each document is single-column, right/left, 
> with room for sideheads. Now when I generate an index, I 
> import it into the document (just like a TOC). But naturally 
> I want the index to be two-column...

You're struggling against the essential nature of FM -- why? Use the program the way it's designed to be used -- make the TOC and index separate documents, and your problem goes away. 
 
> As far as I can see, there is no way of doing this. I can 
> apply a master page on the index heading, but that only 
> covers the page on which the heading is situated, not the 
> subsequent pages. I made a script which can reformat the text 
> frame from a certain point onwards, but since the document is 
> part of a book, adding or deleting pages elsewhere in the 
> book will shift the whole thing - in short, it's a nightmare 
> to maintain!

With just a few notable exceptions (footnotes/endnotes?), if maintaining something is a nightmare in FM, you should rethink how you're doing it. There's almost always a better, simpler way. 

HTH!
Richard


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Richard G. Combs
Senior Technical Writer
Polycom, Inc.
richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
303-223-5111
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rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom
303-777-0436
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