To help readers find specific concepts and terms that might not be readily located by looking at a TOC, you can include an index at the end of a document. Word creates an index by compiling an alphabetical listing with page numbers based on index entry fields that you have marked in the document. As with a TOC, an index is inserted at the insertion point as a single field.
Tip
In documents that will be distributed electronically, readers can also use the Find feature to go directly to specific search terms.
In the index, an index entry might apply to a word or phrase that appears on a single page or is discussed for several pages. The entry might have related subentries. For example, the main index entry shipping might have below it the subentries supplies, procedures, and packing. An index might also include cross-reference entries that direct readers to related entries. For example, the main index entry shipping might have below it a cross-reference to warehouse.
To insert an index entry field in a document, you first display the Mark Index Entry dialog box. You can do this in one of two ways—by pressing Command+Option+Shift+X, or by following these steps:
On the Insert menu, click Index and Tables.
In the Index and Tables dialog box, click the Index tab.
Click Mark Entry to open the Mark Index Entry dialog box.
Tip
If, before you open the Mark Index Entry dialog box, you select text in the document that you want to mark as an index entry, that text will already appear in the Main Entry box.
From the Mark Index Entry dialog box, you can do any of the following:
Add a main index entry or a subentry.
Format the page number associated with that entry so that it appears in the index as bold, italic, or both.
Designate an entry as a cross-reference, a single-page entry, or a page-range entry.
Tip
Cross-references appear in the index in the following format:
intercom. See phones
In this manner, you can direct readers to index terms that they might not think of when looking for specific information.
After you have set the options in the dialog box the way you want them, you can insert an index entry field adjacent to the selected text by clicking Mark, or adjacent to every occurrence of the selected text in the document by clicking Mark All. The Mark Index Entry dialog box remains open to simplify the process of inserting multiple index entry fields. You can move the dialog box off to the side so that it doesn’t block the text you’re working with.
Tip
When building an index, you should choose the text you mark carefully, bearing in mind what terms readers are likely to look up. For example, one reader might expect to find information about cell phones by looking under cell, whereas another might look under mobile, another under phones, and another under telephones. A good index will include all four entries.
Index entry fields are formatted as hidden; you can’t see them unless you display hidden characters by clicking the Show button on the Standard toolbar. When an index entry field is visible, it appears in the document, enclosed in quotation marks within a set of braces, with the designator XE and a dotted underline.
Tip
You can hide any text in a document by selecting it, clicking Font on the Format menu, selecting the Hidden check box in the Font dialog box, and then clicking OK. When you print a document, Word doesn’t print hidden text with the document unless you select the Hidden Text check box on the Print page of the Word Preferences dialog box. You can open this dialog box from within Word by clicking Preferences on the Word menu, or from the Print dialog box by clicking Word Options on the Microsoft Word page of the dialog box.
You can change the text of an index entry by editing the text within the quotation marks in the index entry field as you would any other. (You could also edit the text in the inserted index, but that change would not be permanent; regenerating the index or pulling index entry fields for another purpose would restore the original entry.) To delete an index entry, you select the entire hidden field and then press the Delete key. You can also move and copy index entries by using the techniques you would use for regular text.
Tip
Dragging through any part of an index entry field that includes one of the enclosing braces selects the entire field.
To create an index based on the index entries marked in a document, you position the insertion point where you want the index to appear, and then click Index And Tables on the Insert menu. From the Index page of the Index And Tables dialog box, you can specify the following:
Whether the index formatting should use styles from the current template or be based on one of six predefined formats that you can preview in the Preview box.
How many columns Word should create for the index. Because most index entries are very short, laying out an index in columns helps to evenly fill space on the page.
Whether page numbers should be right-aligned, and if so whether they should have dotted, dashed, or solid tab leaders.
Whether the index should be indented, with each subentry on a separate line below the main entries, or run-in, with subentries on the same line as the main entries.
If your index terms include words beginning with accented letters, whether those should appear in a section specific to the accented letter rather than with the non-accented version.
Clicking the Modify button opens a Style dialog box in which you can specify paragraph and character styling for each level of index entry. (Nine levels are available, but most indexes have only two or three.)
When you click OK in the Index And Tables dialog box, Word calculates the page numbers of all the entries and subentries, consolidates them, and inserts the index as a single field in the specified format at the specified location in the document. If the index is laid out in columns and the preceding (or following) content is not, the index will be set within its own section, with section breaks before and after it.
If you make changes to the document that affect its index entries or page numbering, you can update the index by right-clicking it and then clicking Update Field.