[XeTeX] hypertext index

[Alan Munn]

On Mar 8, 2011, at 11:04 PM, Mike Maxwell wrote:

> On 3/8/2011 10:54 PM, Alan Munn wrote:
>> On Mar 8, 2011, at 9:28 PM, Mike Maxwell wrote:
>> 
>>> On 3/8/2011 9:01 PM, Alan Munn wrote:
>>>> On Mar 8, 2011, at 8:42 PM, Herbert Schulz wrote:
>>>>> On Mar 8, 2011, at 6:49 PM, houda araj wrote:
>>>>>> ... Is it possible to construct an hypertext index using
>>>>>> latex or xelatex ? Any information on the subject is
>>>>>> appreciated. Many thanks Houda
>>>>> 
>>>>> Howdy, I think if you include the hyperref package
>>>>> (\usepackage{hyperref}) that just happens. Put it as the last
>>>>> package loaded.
>>>> 
>>>> Not really with xelatex. For that you need xindy, but it has
>>>> problems with hyperref.
>>> 
>>> Umm, we've been using hyperref (without xindy) in xelatex and are
>>> getting plenty of hyperlinks in our PDF, including to external
>>> websites. At least I assume hyperref is what's giving us the
>>> hyperlinks.  Isn't that what it's supposed to do?
>> 
>> Yes.  hyperref isn't incompatible with xelatex; it's incompatible
>> with xindy and xindy is really the only indexing system that is able
>> to cope properly with unicode.  So although makeindex works fine with
>> hyperref, if you are indexing anything other than English you really
>> need something like xindy.
> 
> Ah, but I'm still confused.  Our index entries (created with makeindex, but not xindy) certainly contain non-ASCII Unicode characters (schwas, stacked diacritics...), and yet the page #s attached to those index entries seem to hyperlink just fine. Does the problem happen only if the hyperlinks themselves on the index terms contain non-ASCII characters? Like if we used Indic page numbers in our indices?

I'm no expert on this, so I'd best stop while I'm ahead. Does makeindex sort non-English things properly without resorting to special devices in the index entries?   Anyway, there is no problem as far as I know with hyperref and makeindex; the problems with makeindex are related to its ability to deal easily with non-English sort orders.

-- 
Alan Munn
amunn at gmx.com