This looks great. If you'll take some proofreading of the index, I'd say:

1. The portion at the beginning not an index, and shouldn't be called one. If it were an index, I would expect to be able to look up "Creed" or "Holy God We Praise Thy Name" or whatever alphabetically to find out what page it's on. The part where you can do that is appropriately called an index, but most of this is actually a table of contents.

2. Writing "six (6)" and the like is for contracts and other legal documents. In the legal context, it serves the function of giving an quickly-read version (the one in numerals) while the spelled-out one remains controlling in the event of a discrepancy, especially important since numerals can easily be altered by turning a 3 into an 8 or whatever. (The same rule applies in the case of writing checks, BTW; the written-out line controls if it differs from the numbers you put in the box.) I don't know how this practice ever worked its way into other kinds of writing, but it is an abomination.

3. It would be nice if the page numbers were right-justified (aligned along the right margin), as you have in the hymn indices, rather than ragged. Your word processor should be able to do this, inserting an appropriate number of periods in between the entry text and the page number.

4. Page spans should use an en dash, not a hyphen. You might not thing "112-115" and "112–115" are different, but they are. The second one is proper style. The hyphens are especially noticeable in the font you have chosen due to their tilt.

5. The "Gregorian Mass Settings in English" in Section III . . . in what sense are they "Gregorian"? That's a bit misleading, no? I would hope for a somewhat more careful use of terminology: these might be "Gregorian-style," or "English Chant" settings.

6. Where listed, "SAINT PETER AND PAUL" should be "SAINTS."

7. Some of the choices made in formatting the "List of Sundays" don't seem to be the best. It is somewhat difficult to read because of so many repetitions where the (A), (B), and (C) entries must all be given (and all in block capitals, apparently). Perhaps you could (1) just list the Sundays, not each individual sub-entry for each Sunday, (2) provide subsection headings for the various liturgical seasons of Advent, Lent, Ordinary Time, and so on, (3) maybe not have everything in block capitals?, and (4) put explanatory phrases ("Evening Mass," etc.) after, not before, the main text of the entry ("HOLY THURSDAY").

8. In the Alphabetical List of Hymns, the two entries for In Paradisum should be in the opposite order.

9. In the various places where it appears, there should be no comma after Thou in the title of "Come, Thou[,] Long-Expected Jesus."

10. Must the web address really be in the header of every single page? That's a little much.

Jeffrey,

I'm thrilled to see this. Congratulations on everything here! And I'm especially excited to see such a full Kyriale.

Some thoughts, for what they're worth:

(1) Do you really need to underline Section I? You've already got it boldface, and in a larger font.

(2) Ditto what MarkT said on right-justifying the page numbers.

(3) I know this is intended as an "index," but if appropriate, could you indicate here just what "Section I" and "Section II," etc., are?

(4) In the index, you indicate that it's the "ICEL Mass Setting." I recall Jeffrey T. mentioning somewhere that it would be preferable to label this as the "Missal setting" (or words to that effect) -- the idea being that this is what's in the Missal, rather than what was written by some international commission.

(5) Ditto what MarkT said about calling them "Gregorian" Mass settings.

(6) Ditto what MarkT said about Six (6).

(7) Generally, I'm wondering if you might consider being a bit more judicious about your use of the ampersand (&) symbol for "and." I'm not entirely sure where I'd recommend replacing them, but to me, it's sometimes slightly distracting to see the symbol when I'm reading the phrase as text.

(8) In your index of Sundays, I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed with all the capital letters there. I do see how they contrast nicely with the non-capitalized words, where the occur, but am wondering if you might consider setting this portion of the index a bit differently. (Hm… do you really need to have Optional Readings in boldface italics?) (Also… capital letters are indeed appropriate for the hymn tune titles, of course. Works better there.)

(9) While I appreciate the different A-B-C page numbers, I'm wondering if there might be a more elegant way of presenting that, without all the repetition — or perhaps you could even omit the distinction altogether.

(10) Do you really need to indicate "Evening Mass" and "Holy Saturday Night" for Holy Thursday and the Easter Vigil, respectively?

(11) Related to my No. 8 above, it seems a bit odd to go from written-out numbers (e.g., "Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time) to numerals ("17th Sunday in Ordinary Time"). (As a writer myself, Jeffrey, I understand that these are all about decisions and compromises you make along the way! I'm just offering my own impressions here.)

(12) In your alphabetical index of hymn tunes, again, right-justifying the page numbers would be nice. And while I appreciate your "composers of hymn tunes" block of text there, I'm wondering if you'd consider incorporating that information into the list itself. (Not a real big deal for me.)

(13) In your "Index of hymn tune meters," I appreciate the prefatory text… but is it really necessary? Would you consider including it in a smaller font? (I understand, though, that you have to maintain a consistent appearance in font size choices.) In any case, is there a way you can avoid the hyphen in the word "common"?

(14) In the "alphabetical index of hymns," having the page numbers precede the titles seems a bit odd, but again, I think I do understand why you did it that way.

(15) Back to the third page of the index, under "Section IV": Rather than "For full indices, please see below," you might want to indicate the specific page number.

(16) Same section: Do the words "Liturgical Season" need to be capitalized there? (I'm nitpicking.)

(17) Okay, MarkT mentioned the en dash versus hyphen thing… with which I concur! (Good to see that I'm not the only one who makes that distinction!) This isn't exactly on the same level, but in the Hymn Index (Seasonal), the bullets seem a bit out-of-proportion… • (on a Mac, Option-8) versus something like · (Option-shift-9)

I think that's all for now. Most importantly, though… when can I preorder this? Congrats again!

P.S./edit: Again, beautiful, all of this… and I love the line art. I'm hoping that the cover is as elegant as what's inside!

Or, perhaps, why on earth...

Ah, I see, was a joke...

What a wonderful collection! Thank you, Jeffrey. I agree with the constructive comments made by others above.-

Jeffrey,

The index looks great. Simply the most comprehensive hymnal I've ever seen. Putting it together with the Chabanel Psalms and the SEP and it is one of the most exciting things I've seen come out of the Catholic music world in a while. Great work! My parish in S. Dakota is more than likely on board with purchasing this hymnal.

A few things:

1.) The pastor needs to have it in HIS HANDS to make a decision. He is ready to give his go ahead, but needs to hold it.
2.) What is the price? Bulk order pricing?
3.) What is the quality of binding going to be?
4.) The only concern that I have might be if the Latin Eucharistic Prayer (for example) is set directly next to the English. For some reason seeing the Latin right there is troubling to especially those older than 60-65. It makes sense to put them side by side, but I don't suppose you would/could have them away from each other. Again, it isn't rationale, and I could use the argument that your putting it there is "to show the authenticity of the new translation from the Latin." Diplomacy...arghh!

God bless you! Again, a very nice job!

I recently had a conversation with someone, whose parish is probably looking to replace their hymnals with something having the new translation of the Mass - I couldn't think of any recommendations. This looks like like it would have been suitable, as it is much closer to a typical hymnal than, for example, the Parish Book of Chant.