Indexes

Tips, Tricks, and Answers

The following articles are available for the 'Indexes' topic. Click the article's title (shown in bold) to see the associated article.

Adding Quoted Words to an Index
It is not unusual to need to convert one notation in a document into another entirely different notation. For instance, you may need to convert words or phrases surrounded by quote marks into words that are included in an index for the document. This may appear difficult, but can be rather easily accomplished by using a macro.

Chapter Numbers in Indexes and TOAs
Word allows you to define prefixes for page numbers. These are often used for chapter or section numbers in a large document. Getting these prefixes to appear in all the places you want them can, at times, be tricky. This tip provides a step-by-step way to make sure they are included.

Creating a Normal Index
Adding an index to a document is an easy task. There are a couple of ways you can do it, as described in this tip.

Creating an Index Entry
In order to create an index, you first need to create the entries that will be used to compile the index. Here's how you do that.

Creating an Index Entry for a Range of Pages
Putting together an index for your documents can be challenging, but Word provides some great tools to make the task easier. If you want to create index entries that span a range of pages, you need to do it using bookmarks, as described in this tip.

Cross-Referencing Index Entries
You've probably seen an index where an entry says something like "Obsidian: See igneous rock." This sort of cross-reference is easy to create using the indexing tools that Word provides.

Deleting Index Entries
When you construct an index you need to insert all sorts of index fields throughout your document. If you want to later remove an index entry, you need to delete the field for that entry, as described here.

Hyperlinks in an Index
How to establish a hyperlink between an index and the text in a Word document.

Improper Index Page Numbers
If you use Word to index a long document, double-check to make sure that the pages mentioned in the index are the correct pages. If you notice a discrepancy, it may be due to how you have hidden text handled in the document. This tip walks you through figuring out what is wrong and fixing it.

Improper Index References
When indexing a document, you may get some funny results once in a while. If you get single index entries when you were expecting multiple ones, the reason could be because of the way you have your pages numbered.

Including Section Numbers in an Index
When Word creates an index based on your specifications, you may want it to include a section number in its page references. There are a couple of ways you can do that, as described in this tip.

Inconsistent Formatting in an Index
When indexing a document, you may find that some of your index entries aren't formatted the save as your other index entries. This can be caused by a couple of different conditions, described in this tip.

Indexing a Range of Pages
After you get your document ready for indexing by inserting index fields throughout it, you may want to index only a portion of the whole. You can do this by using the INDEX field with an optional switch that limits the index to a range of text.

Indexing Based on a Range of Letters
Word provides many options for creating indexes. One option allows you to specify that the index contain only entries that begin with a range of letters that you define.

Multiple Indexes in a Document
Adding a single index to a document is fairly easy. What if you want to add multiple indexes, however? And what if you want one of those indexes to only apply to a particular section of the document? There are a couple of ways you can approach this problem.

Specifying an Index Entry Separator
One of the switches you can use with the index field allows you to specify how index entries should be separated from the page numbers following the entry. Here's the skinny on how to get just what you want.

Specifying an Index Page-Range Separator
When generating an index, Word normally uses a dash to indicate page ranges. You can change the character used for these ranges by using a switch in the index field.

Specifying Index Section Dividers
When adding an index to your document, you can use one of the available field switches to specify how the index should be divided up. This tip details your section-dividing options.