hello, thank you for helping.
I want to make a list of parts of sentences that I have highlighted or made bold across the document. how to do this? i have highlighted and bolded key parts of sentences across the whole document and want to make a short notes from them at a single place to avoid scrolling the lengthy document. i just want to collect those pieces at a single place, any form of collection or list or table will do, what are the different ways to do this?
Please edit your question to better explain your goal (don’t use an answer which is reserved for solutions).
As I read it, you have two issues:
Describe what you want to capture and how you want it organised in the index table. Better, show an index in text form (put 5 spaces at start of line so that they are not merged).
edited, tell me if I am not clear enough still.
The question contains two issues:
Those points are independent from each other. Emphasised sequences cannot be collected automatically. Collected sequences are not automatically emphasised in any way.
##Emphasis
I assume your highlighting (whatever its form: bold, italics or highlight colour) is the result of a direct formatting, i.e. pressing a toolbar button, a keyboard shortcut or a menu item. Such a highlighting is not reliable because you can easily forget a step in a complex formatting and end up with a different mark up though it may superficially look the same…
I suggest you create a dedicated character style. Call it KeyItem. Note that Write comes with two built-in styles Emphasis and Strong Emphasis (resp. italics and bold). But their name may not reflect your intent.
If you don’t know what a character style is, read at least the built-in help or better the Writer Guide. This will allow you to control the formatting of your key parts from a single location.
Ctrl+M or Format>Clear direct formatting
For new key sentences, omit the two initial steps.
##Collecting sequences in a table
Your question and comments suggest(ed) to gather your “highlighted” parts in the table of contents (TOC). It is technically feasible for whole paragraphs but not for sentences or words which are not full paragraphs.
However, I advocate against because you mix two semantically different things in a single table: document structure (aka. chapters) and transient author “notes”.
Arbitrary parts (meaning not-full, partial paragraphs) can be gathered in an “index” table. There is a fundamental difference between a TOC and an index. Entries in TOC appear in document order, while entries in index are merged and sorted alphabetically with a list of pages where they appear.
To mark a sequence as being “indexable”:
select the sequence
Insert>TOC & Index>Index Entry
You can choose here if you want the full sentence to be used as the index or force a summary/keyword instead.
Move to where you want the table to appear.
Insert>TOC & Index>TOC, Index or Bibliography
Alphabetical index
Later, after you have added new key sentences, right-click in the index and Update Table to show the new entries.
##Other possibilities
###List of entries
If you really want the entries to be listed in document order (TOC-like) with hyperlink to quickly get back to them, you can do it, provided your entries are full paragraphs.
In front of each paragraph, Insert>Field>More Fields. In the Variables tab, choose Type Number range and Select one convenient category or create your own in Name (don’t enter anything in *Value).
Your parts will then be numbered.
Where you want the list of key point, Insert>TOC & Index>TOC, Index or Bibliography. In the Type menu, select either Table of Figures or Index of Tables. Both are equivalent, they just preset other fields you can modify to suit your needs. In Create from Category:* select from the drop-down menu the number range name with which you marked your parts. Display will tell if you want the number only (Category and number), the text only (Caption Text) or both (References).
###Notes
You can also create footnotes or endnotes. With notes, there is no need to mark a part, you just Insert>Footnote & Endnote>…. The note itself maybe empty and you only have a sequence of note numbers which are clickable to jump quickly to the anchor.
With footnotes, you must navigate in every page to check whether you have some marked sequences. With endnotes, everything is grouped in page(s) at end of document.
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what i ve understood, please comment:
Character styling is just what its name implies. It does affect otherwise the document. Yes it is separate from index tagging.
TOC construction is based on paragraph styles. Paragraphs with specifically marked styles are collected to be part of the TOC (the whole text of the paragraph will make the TOC entry). The engine adds chapter numbers if told so.
There is no obvious pattern about what should be part of the index or not. Consequently, the process is manual.
thank you, that solves my problem.
please do 1 last thing though: edit and separate the two things in ur answer above, character styling and creating index entry then listing it. mention them separately so its easy to understand their independence from each other for new users, as i think it may not be easy and clear for them this way [my fault of raising two issues together].
also mention that ‘Alphabetical index’ is just one option and ‘table of contents’ another to list indexes along with chapter numbering/para styles, i prefered ‘table of contents’ option as that is lot more helpful for me.
Unfortunately I did not proof-read my last comment and a missing word changes the meaning of a phrase. Please read: It does not affect otherwise the document.
thanks a lot for such an elaborate answer!
i’ll use this case which is still not mentioned in the answer and i request you to include this [sorry for again]: i index partial paras and set type to ‘table of contents’ instead of ‘alphabetical index’ and also set their outline level. it has a con of indexed entries in TOC without hyperlinks [which isnt very imp for me] and mixing TOC with index entries is weird but it’s the only way to achieve what i want- respective indexed entries under each chapter [i dont need alphabetical order and full paras]. another optn u should mentn in ur answer.
If your use case is “marked paragraphs inside relevant chapters” in TOC, then it is a “standard” case of TOC. Choose a Heading n with n>chapter/subschapter level under which you want your entries. Then your entries are part of the structure. As said it works with full paragraphs.
Having inline heading is very tricky. It involves hidden standard headings and copy through field insertions inside the next paragraph. Type inline heading in the search box. You’ll find a link to a tutorial.
I won’t update my answer because I initially thought you wanted a “temporary” list of reminders (locations where you need to later improve the wording), reminders to be removed when document is in final shape. If you goal is “simply” a TOC, play with Heading n.
Step1: First install ‘Alternative Find & Replace for Writer (AltSearch)’ extension from link text
Danger: The following steps will extract the emboldened and/or highlighted text from the doc and remove rest of the text, keep a copy of original file to retain the full doc. Once extracted, you can paste it to original doc.
Step2: Enter following codes in the Find box of the extension dialog box for their described effects:
Step3: Leave the Replace box empty and click ‘Replace all’. This must extract only the content which you wished for.
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Please use “standard” English, most of us are not native English speakers. “u” → “you”, “i” → “I” can be understood, but “urself” can be read “ourself” as a typo or “yourself” with an effort, same for “ur”. Respect sentence casing.
Corrected, thank you.
Thanks. A few misspellings are still there but globally it is now acceptable.