Make Your Own Macros—Keyboard Shortcuts to Speed Indexing and Increase Accuracy

Make Your Own Macros—Keyboard Shortcuts to Speed Indexing and Increase Accuracy

Three-Part Course with Elizabeth Bartmess

October 9, 16, and 23, 2024

10 am Pacific; 11 am Mtn; 12 pm Central; 1 pm Eastern

Macros are like mini-programs that anyone can write. They allow users to perform a longer series of tasks with a quick keyboard shortcut and can speed indexing, increase accuracy, and reduce small annoyances. For example, a macro can copy selected text from a PDF reader, create a new index entry, and prefill the entry with the selected text and the current page number for your review—all with a single keyboard shortcut. Macros can also invert names, clean text, and do many other useful tasks.

Attendees will learn to design and troubleshoot simple and complex macros. The course is aimed at both complete beginners and at indexers who would like to enhance their macro skills and learn new techniques.

The course will teach a general strategic approach to planning, implementing, and troubleshooting macros. Participants will also learn how to implement specific building blocks such as sending keystrokes, switching windows, accessing buttons and menus, and more. Attendees will also have the option to submit specific indexing tasks as candidates for macros, and some of these will be chosen and demonstrated during the final session.

While the general course content will be applicable to multiple macro software products, the examples will focus on Macro Express (Windows) and Keyboard Maestro (Mac), with some attention to Keysmith (Mac) and AutoHotKey (a scripting language for Windows).* Examples will be shown for Cindex, Sky 8, and Macrex, and most macros demonstrated will be made available to course participants.

* Participants are recommended to have macro software for their platform (Mac/Windows) on hand during the course. Macro Express and Keyboard Maestro both offer 30-day free trials. Keysmith allows up to 5 free macros, and AutoHotKey is entirely free. Links will be sent to registrants as the course approaches.

Course Overview

Session 1: Identifying macro-shaped problems

• What macros are
• Why and when to use macros
• Overview of macro software capabilities
• Recording versus scripting/building macros
• Introduction to basic macros in each software
• Tips for choosing keyboard shortcuts

Session 2: Designing, building, and debugging macros

• Breaking down problems into their smallest parts
• Incrementally building macros
• Chaining simple macros to produce complex ones
• Useful building blocks for common indexing tasks
• Testing and debugging techniques
• Common miscellaneous issues and their solutions

Session 3: Text manipulation, scripting, and getting help

• Manipulating text, including inverting names, stripping line breaks, and removing excess spaces and punctuation
• Scripting
• Backing up your macros
• Sharing macros
• Where and how to get help

Each session is approximately one hour.

About our Presenter

Elizabeth Bartmess discovered indexing in 2022 while researching freelance editing as a potential career. She completed the Berkeley course in early 2023 and won the Purple Pen Contest for New Indexers later that year.

She has master's degrees in social psychology and information science, the latter focused on usability testing and user interface design. Her past technical experience includes data management and statistical programming, Google Sheets automation, and creating technical documentation and trainings. She is a big fan of productivity techniques in moderation and tries not to annoy people by talking about it too much. Her current projects include TextEmbedder, a software product supporting embedded indexing into XML/HTML/markdown files, and HTMLizer, a software product for generating HTML indexes from index files.

Elizabeth volunteers with the Open Cindex project and serves as Co-Chair and Co-Webmaster for ASI's Pacific Northwest Chapter, as well as Co-Webmaster for ASI's Digital Publications Indexing SIG. She lives with her husband and housemates in the San Francisco Bay Area.

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The early rate for this 3-part course is just $249 for members. After October 23, the rate for the course will be $299. You will have long-term access to the replays. Please purchase using your email address on file: Guest

The early rate for this 3-part course is $299 for non-members. After October 23, the rate for the course will be $349. You will have long-term access to the replays. If you have previously purchased from ASI, please use your email address on file. Guest

Please note: Attendance at the live sessions is not required. Replays will be posted after the initial sessions have aired.

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