Auto-Indexing in Case CATalyst

In the short six months that I have been scoping, I have explained to newer court reporters at least twice how to do auto-indexing.  Case CATalyst has a study guide about how to use this handy feature, but it is long and not well organized, and I found it difficult to follow without a visual guide.  As such, I am creating, as my first “tips and tricks” post, a how-to on auto-indexing.

This tutorial involves a couple of pre-created parentheticals and an index template modified from one of the ones that come with the Case CATalyst software.  I will show you how to create the parentheticals in this post, but I will do the Index Template creation/modification in a future post.

Auto-indexing is a simple process, but the setup can be a bit tedious.  That is why it is good to have the necessary Include files and Index Template ready beforehand.  Steps One through Four show you how to set those up.  Steps Five through Eight walk you through using those files inside transcripts–in other words, the easy part.

Step One: Placing your index positioner, unless you want your index to be the last page in the transcript.

If your title and appearance pages are Include files, you should only have to do this once.  Click at the bottom of the appearance page (or whatever page is right before the index in your transcripts), and press F4 twice.  Then press the I button, and scroll down until you get to Index Position.  Press Enter, and you should see it in the Reveal Codes pane.  Save your Include file, or keep working on the transcript.

NOTE: I did not use an Include file for the title/appearance page in this post, as I did not have any created.  Creating those will be in a future post as well.

Step Two: Creating the exhibit marking parenthetical Include file.

1. In the Manage Jobs tab (if you like, inside a Case called “Includes”), click File –> New –> Text File.
2. Name it “Exhibit Marked,” or something else that will help you remember that it is a parenthetical about exhibits being marked.
3. Press F4, then the letter P.
4. Scroll down until you see “Parenthetical,” and then press Enter.
5. Start with an opening parenthesis.
6. If you usually add a descriptive word to the exhibit marking parenthetical, you can make choices of which word to use by holding the Ctrl button while you press the letter I.
   1. Each choice should begin with a carat (^), and a space.
   2. Press Enter when you are finished making the choices.
7. Type the rest of your parenthetical, leaving a pound sign (#) where you would normally put the exhibit number.
8. Encode the Index Heading (if your exhibit index requires a number, a description, and a page number).
   1. Click just to the left of the #.
   2. Press F4, then press and hold Shift+J, then press B (B is the second index on the Index Template I am using).
   3. Click just to the right of the #.
   4. Press F4+J+B.
9. Create Hidden Text–if you don’t want your exhibit description within the body of the transcript–and encode the exhibit description (if your transcript requires it).
   1. Click somewhere within the parenthetical (I like just to the left of the word “marked”).
   2. Press Alt+E+I+H.
   3. Click inside the pop-up box.
   4. Press F4, then press and hold Shift+I, then press B.
   5. Type the word “Description.”
   6. Press F4+I+B.
   7. Press Enter.
10. Save and close the file.

Step Three: Create the Examination header Include file.

1. Create a new text file (inside your Includes Case).
2. Press F4, then L for a New Line paragraph (or F4+F for a centered paragraph).
3. If you use Direct, Redirect, Cross-, Recross-, or other examination types in your transcripts, you can create a conflict to make those choices as in Step Two, Part 6.
4. Type “EXAMINATION,” then press Enter (or F4+L if you followed the instruction in parenthesis for part 2).
5. Type “QUESTIONS BY ATTORNEY” followed by a colon.
6. Click before the first word or carat on the first line.
7. Press F4, then press and hold Shift+I, then press A.
8. Click between the Y in “ATTORNEY” and the colon.
9. Press F4+I+A.
10. Highlight the word “ATTORNEY” (but not the colon!).
11. Press F4+O to make it a scan stop (you can also make this a fill-in field, but I’m not going to show that in this tutorial).
12. Save and close the file.

Step Four: Define steno strokes.  This can only be done by someone with a writer and the full version of Case CATalyst, so I do not have any screen shots.

Defining steno strokes to bring Include files into your job automatically will save you some time during editing.  Create a stroke that you will only use for each Include file (I will make a couple suggestions shortly), and then make those strokes on your writer.  Translate the notes you made to create those strokes, and then D-Define them to bring in the appropriate Include files.

Parenthetical: Suggested Strokes –> D-Define
Exhibit Marked: /PHARBG /PHARBG /PHARBG –> F9, Exhibit Marked Include file
Examination: /KPAM /KPAM /KPAM –> F9, Examination Include file

Step Five: Putting in/cleaning up the Examination Includes while editing.

The image below is basically what the examination heading will look like when you first start editing your transcript (or just after you include it while editing/scoping).

Choose the proper type of examination in the conflict (if you created one in your Include file), and then change the word “ATTORNEY” to the proper attorney’s name.  It should look like your examination headings usually look when you’re done; the rest is in the Reveal Codes pane.  Make sure you see <Index On A> and <Index Off A> in that pane, and then continue editing.

Step Six: Putting in/cleaning up the exhibit marking parentheticals while editing.

This is what the Exhibit Marked parenthetical looks like when you first include it while editing/scoping (or after translation of your job, if you’ve defined steno strokes to do the inclusion for you).

1. Choose the proper option for the conflict, if you made one in the Include file.
2. Highlight the #, and type in the proper exhibit number.
3. Click the push pin icon/Hidden Text indicator.
4. Inside the pop-up box, highlight the word “Description,” and type the exhibit’s description, then press Enter.
5. This parenthetical should look like your exhibit marking parentheticals usually do now.  Check the Reveal Codes pane to make sure that the <Index Heading On B> and <Index Heading Off B> codes are surrounding the #, and that the <Index On B> and <Index Off B> is inside the <HIDDEN TEXT: > code.
6. Continue editing.

Step Seven: Build the index.

Step Eight: Admire your index!

And there you have it, one nice, neat index that you didn’t have to type yourself!

If you need to change the index–such as if you built it before editing (or proofreading) and some page numbers changed–then click anywhere on the index page that is not inside a table, and go to Tools–>Index–>Delete Index.  And then build your index again (Tools–>Index–>Build Index).