Re: Index of cases

[David Rogers <davidandrewrogers@gmail.com>]

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.)

-- 
David R