5. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein said words of information are stored in storage areas in groups designated index groups, each index group normally occupying a predetermined area of storage but occasionally exceeding said predetermined area, and further comprising: 5. means for determining when an index group exceeds said predetermined area of storage; and 6. means for recording an area skip code for areas storing the excess of information in any index group.
1. Apparatus for generating at least one abstract that is useful during information searching and retrieval procedures, comprising: 1. means for sensing information comprising individual words in a selected language, each word comprising one or more individual characters; 2. means for categorizing selected ones only of the characters in said words into predefined character groups that are based on a probability distribution of characters in the language selected; 3. means maintaining a count of the number of characters categorized into each of said predefined character groups; and 4. means for storing said count as an abstract of said information.