MadCap Software Forums

This may be a dumb question and perhaps I've just forgotten since I haven't fiddled with the index much the last couple of months, but is there a way to get MSR and Magnetic Stripe Reader to act like the same keyword and return the same results without having to enter links for each? So that it knows when you search for MSR that it is the abbreviation for/same thing as Magnetic Stripe Reader? I just took out a few other keywords since Flare will bring up stripe when you search for strip. Most people just refer to it as an MSR and don't even know what it means so that is all I want to have showing in the Index, but I want it to be able to find Magnetic Stripe Reader.

Before:
Magnetic Strip Reader
Magnetic Stripe Reader
Magnetic Stripe Reader MSR
Magnetic Strip Reader
MSR

Now:
MSR
Magnetic Stripe Reader

Robin

I added a Synonym file with the group MSR=Magnetic Stripe Reader but when I search for MSR I get 7 results and when I search for Magnetic Stripe Reader I get 17 results (without containing quotes) and 4 results with quotes. Shouldn't I be getting the same results for each?

Robin

For your index entries, you might be able to use just one entry for "Magnetic Stripe Reader (MSR)". The index is alphabetical, so people looking for either Magnetic or MSR are both likely to find it.

For your synonyms, a synonym can only be a single word, so "magnetic stripe reader" won't work; although Flare doesn't show any errors to tell you that!
Also, it may be useful to add a synonym for strip=stripe, if your audience uses both these terms interchangably.

The search results will include index terms in addition to the topic content. If you include all variants of the term in the topic text or index entry, then you should get the same topics in the results, although the topic order is likely to vary.

Dave Lee wrote:For your synonyms, a synonym can only be a single word, so "magnetic stripe reader" won't work; although Flare doesn't show any errors to tell you that!
Also, it may be useful to add a synonym for strip=stripe, if your audience uses both these terms interchangably.

I had actually wondered about this or if I would need quotes or something. Good to know...and disappointing.

The search results will include index terms in addition to the topic content.

I thought this varied based on output type?

Robin

I wouldn't enter the misspelled ones. For the very simple reason of how the index works:
The user starts entering a string and with every letter the index moves further down to fit the string, means: Your users will find the keyword with its correct spelling before they reach the "e" at the end of "stripe".

And I don't think Magnetic Stripe Reader (MSR) will be found if the user enters MSR ... maybe in this case it will help, because the "M" will bring the user to the start of the letter M in the index and if they look they might see Magnetic Stripe Reader there and pick it right away.
The search in the index always starts at the beginning of the keyword ...

rmdavidson wrote:

The search results will include index terms in addition to the topic content.

I thought this varied based on output type?

It might not in HTMLHelp, but if you're using synonyms then you presumably are producing WebHelp/DotNetHelp/HTML5, and all of these include index entries in search results. (Unless you've selected Exclude Index Entries in the target).

i-tietz wrote:I wouldn't enter the misspelled ones. For the very simple reason of how the index works:
The user starts entering a string and with every letter the index moves further down to fit the string, means: Your users will find the keyword with its correct spelling before they reach the "e" at the end of "stripe".

And I don't think Magnetic Stripe Reader (MSR) will be found if the user enters MSR ... maybe in this case it will help, because the "M" will bring the user to the start of the letter M in the index and if they look they might see Magnetic Stripe Reader there and pick it right away.
The search in the index always starts at the beginning of the keyword ...

Yep, when 'search' was mentioned in the original post, I thought that was talking about the search accordion/tab, not the search box in the the index accordion/tab. Searching for MSR in the search tab (not the index) will show topics with an index entry of "Magnetic Stripe Reader (MSR)".

We are producing both WebHelp and a CHM. The CHM is supposed to be going away eventually.

Robin