Is there a way to search indexes or TOCs specifically?

Hamilton Ramos
Hamilton Ramos Member Posts: 1,033 ✭✭
edited November 2024 in English Forum

Hello power users, God bless.

I was wondering if there is a way to search for a particular term or word just in the indexes of monographs, reference works, etc. that have one.

It could be also in the Table of Contents.

I looked at the field list, and there seems to be none for index.

Any ideas or suggestions?

Also, indirectly related, would it be ok to copy paste an article found in a webpage to MS Word, have it create an index, and then use Pbb to have the information handy in L7? Would that infringe copyrights?

Thanks ahead of time for any guidance, suggestion or ideas.

Comments

  • NB.Mick
    NB.Mick MVP Posts: 16,148

    I was wondering if there is a way to search for a particular term or word just in the indexes of monographs, reference works, etc. that have one.

    It could be also in the Table of Contents.

    I looked at the field list, and there seems to be none for index.

    Any ideas or suggestions?

    AFAIK there is no such search field (actually in older books the printed indexes were omitted as one can find up information much quicker with Logos).

    I'd try the search fields

    • Heading Text, Large Text (this would be what goes into a TOC, noting that many resources have no real Heading Text index and use Large Text which is generated automatically for text formatted larger than the normal surface text of a resource - in bad cases this is only the front title, so don't expect 100% complete coverage of all TOCs in your library)
    • Tag, Title, Topic (those would contain stuff that usually ends up in indexes in printed books - sometimes it may be captions of illustrations and such) 

    would it be ok to copy paste an article found in a webpage to MS Word, have it create an index, and then use Pbb to have the information handy in L7? Would that infringe copyrights?

    This might depend on your jurisdiction. I'm assuming you are talking about material that is copyrighted (at least implicitly) that you now want to use for your studies. In many countries this would be considered Fair Use or fall under copyright exception rules that allow private/educational use. I guess it is most probably okay in most cases to do so for yourself, but not okay to share that PB source or the L7 PB with others - of course in some cases the webpage you found that article on may include stipulations about allowed or not allowed actions.   

    Have joy in the Lord! Smile

  • Hamilton Ramos
    Hamilton Ramos Member Posts: 1,033 ✭✭

    Thank you very much NB, excellent input. God bless.

  • Hamilton Ramos
    Hamilton Ramos Member Posts: 1,033 ✭✭

    Hi NB:

    Thanks to your input, I got the idea of doing the following search:

    [Field heading, largetext] index

    I am very impressed with the results, as I have been able to look into some books I was not aware I had.

    So glad with the different books that have general, subject or content index, that have decided to make a manual collection of those "with index" books.

    See, with this collection, I can type a word, and hopefully it will take me to some area in the index, where I can see related and important concepts that will allow me to execute searches more effectively in the other "non indexed" resources.

    Just browsing an index,  a myriad of topics that I had not consciously been aware of come to mi attention, and relate to the subject in different and important angles.

    As an example, just going through a general index, I found the following:

    discipleship proces, circumvention of ...

    Never heard of such, now I can check what it is about, and search in Library for more info.

    I wonder if some of the advanced techniques Keep Smiling for Jesus uses can be applied:

    Would there be a way to search the Heading field "general index" or "subject index" alone for a particular word (using 400 instead of 88 words)?

    Remember that at any point in time, we have 3 rough types of knowledge: explicit, implicit, and ignored.

    Using an indexed book collection allows to quickly spot some ignored information that may be a key variable in the subject at hand.

    Thanks again for your valuable input, and if you have more ideas please share.

    Blessings. 

     

  • Dave Hooton
    Dave Hooton MVP Posts: 36,041

    Would there be a way to search the Heading field "general index" or "subject index" alone for a particular word (using 400 instead of 88 words)?

    Not sure what you mean by "(using 400 instead of 88 words)"?

    It is not possible to construct a Basic Search across all resources with such an "Index" because they are not Search Fields.

    Once located in the resource, though,  a "Subject Index" or "Index of Subjects" can be searched using the Find box (CTRL+F).

    Dave
    ===

    Windows 11 & Android 13

  • Hamilton Ramos
    Hamilton Ramos Member Posts: 1,033 ✭✭

    Hi Dave, blessings.

    I am referring to Keep Smiling for Jesus' method: (from one of his posts)

    "By way of explanation, many articles can be found by searching Heading OR Large Text for a topical keyword: e.g. Old (for Old Testament). After finding Old in an article title, this search looks in the next 88 words for prayer OR petition in Heading, Large Text, OR Surface text (so prayer OR petition can be part of the article title OR appear in the article)."

    ([field heading,largetext,surface] prayer,petition) AFTER 88 WORDS ([field heading,largetext] Old)

    So in my example, I want to look for a particular word in all the resources in the collection that have books with index, so I would string it like so:

     

    ([field heading,largetext,surface]circumvention) AFTER 400 WORDS ([field heading] index,"subject index","general index") 

    Theoretically, the above should take me to the place where such concept is in the index of the books in my collection.

    My choosing of 400, is because I assume that is the amount (more or less) of words found in the index.

    Hope this clarifies the 400, and the 88. Obviously there are indexes that may have more words, but I do not know if there is a limit to the amount of words the actual search capability will permit.

  • NB.Mick
    NB.Mick MVP Posts: 16,148

    Hamilton Ramos said:

    I want to look for a particular word in all the resources in the collection that have books with index, so I would string it like so:

     

    ([field heading,largetext,surface]circumvention) AFTER 400 WORDS ([field heading] index,"subject index","general index") 

    Theoretically, the above should take me to the place where such concept is in the index of the books in my collection.

    My choosing of 400, is because I assume that is the amount (more or less) of words found in the index.

    Hope this clarifies the 400, and the 88. Obviously there are indexes that may have more words, but I do not know if there is a limit to the amount of words the actual search capability will permit.

    Hamilton,

    I think you can specify thousands of words, if you like.

    So you want to find your search word in books after the Index starts. In this case, it is less helpful to restrict the first phrase (since topical index content is usually normal text, besides alphabet structure, only the surface-part of your field clause is giving results anyway). On the other hand, your are missing those resources where the index is called 'index' but not formatted as Heading text.

    Thus I would rephrase your search to something like

    circumvention AFTER 400 WORDS ([field heading,largetext] index,"subject index","general index") 

    (note that you will get false positives for all books where "subject index" or "general index" are mentioned in the text (quite likely in the TOC and maybe the foreword or such) and your search term is mentioned after that)  

    Have joy in the Lord! Smile

  • Dave Hooton
    Dave Hooton MVP Posts: 36,041

    NB.Mick said:

    Thus I would rephrase your search to something like

    circumvention AFTER 400 WORDS ([field heading,largetext] index,"subject index","general index") 

    I agree but suggest that circumvention AFTER ([field heading,largetext] index,"subject index","general index") would be more successful. However:-

    • the index is actually a footnote, so largetext, heading make no difference e.g. covenant AFTER ([Field footnote] "subject index","index of subjects")
    • the contents of the index are not searchable in the majority of resources c. 87 out of 113. You can search for the index with ([Field footnote] "subject index", "index of subjects")  but if no contents are listed you have to use Find (CTRL+F).

    I could hazard a reason for this but would prefer that Faithlife make a comment.

    Dave
    ===

    Windows 11 & Android 13

  • Hamilton Ramos
    Hamilton Ramos Member Posts: 1,033 ✭✭

    Thanks for the tips NB. and Dave.

    Manually doing my collection of "resources with index" has made me come across some excellent information:

    Blessings.