Two-column index

[Niels Fanøe]

Hi,
Richard Combs wrote: 
-> 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. :-)

It is a book covering a number of different topics, but all of the topics are in the same category. Some of the docs are reference docs (which need an index), others are more general in nature (and I won't take the time to index them). I keep them in the same book in order to publish them together and to make a CHM out of them. 

I could pull out the reference docs, but how would you solve this: two programming manuals (A and B) dealing with different aspects of the same thing. How should I make a combined index - it would need to say "attributes (A):bold" and "attributes (B):bold" and so on, otherwise the reader wouldn't know which reference applied where. But the manuals should be published together (and again, as a CHM) because they are related.

Richard also wrote:

-> 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. 

I have to give you that my document isn't a textbook example of FM usage. However, I can't see that using insets is against the essential nature of FM... and who defines that nature anyhow? Should we get rid of scripting, too? And all that "tweaking" that we all have come to rely on - "it ain't natural" either..?

Anyway - I got my problem solved and learned something new (about applying master pages) - so I'm happy - orthodox or not! :o)

-Niels