Re: Index of cases

[Alan L Tyree <alantyree@gmail.com>]

On 08/09/13 12:05, David Rogers wrote:
> Alan L Tyree <alantyree@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> G'day,
>>
>> I am the author of a legal text of about 700 pages. I currently have
>> the book in LaTeX using the memoir class. A couple of macros define
>> special indexes for a Table of Cases and a Table of Statutes. I would
>> like to move the whole thing to Org to make it easier for my editors
>> who can be easily alarmed by the LaTeX markup.
>>
>> The LaTeX is overkill since I submit the manuscript to the publisher in a Word file.
>>
>> Is there a standard way to get, say, the table of cases? A typical "case" looks like this:
>>
>>      Howell v Coupland (1874) LR 9 QB 462; (1876) 1 QBD 258
>>
>> The Table of Cases needs to indicate where in the text the case is mentioned; reference to section numbers is OK. So, for example, in the Table of Cases, the above case appears as:
>>
>>      Howell v Coupland (1874) LR 9 QB 462; (1876) 1 QBD 258  [15.16] [15.25]
>>
>> Presuming there is not a "standard", I have considered the following procedure:
>>
>>      - maintain a list of cases as I write; I already do this to ensure consistent citation of cases;
>>      - use links from the list of cases back into the manuscript to index the places where each case is mentioned in the text.
>>
>> Does this seem like a reasonable approach, or is there some obviously better way? I am an extreme novice at elisp but can handle some simple jobs.
>
> In one sense it would be "nicer" and more writer-friendly if the links
> went the other direction; that is, when you refer to a case within the
> manuscript, you would always tag it in a way that allows it to be
> automatically labelled with the section in which it occurs, and
> automatically placed into the index of cases for you. That's a
> work-saving ideal that I don't actually know how to achieve. (Further
> idealistic ramblings: if for example you were to add a new section
> between current sections 6 and 7, it would be nice for the labels in
> sections 7 through the end to update themselves "wholesale" without your
> needing to change each label individually.)
>
I was thinking of linking back to the closest headline in the 
Manuscript. If it was a "plain" line, that is, one with no description, 
then it would be replaced in the Table of Cases with the number of the 
headline. Or so I understand from the Manual at section 4.2.

But, if the TOC is a plain text file, then I'm not sure. If it is an org 
file, then following a link looks for matching headlines. Not sure what 
I am doing!

Thanks for the input.

Cheers,
Alan

-- 
Alan L Tyree                    http://www2.austlii.edu.au/~alan
Tel:  04 2748 6206              sip:typhoon@iptel.org