Index

Affinity Publisher can create an index of keywords, called topics, from text used in your publication. The index lets you look up these key words and their referenced page numbers.

About indexes

An index is a valuable reader aid in a longer publication, such as a report or manual. Affinity Publisher lets you create an index with main entries and subentries, based on index marks you insert throughout your publication. Your index is typically placed at the end of your publication and is made up of index entries and associated references.

When the index is generated, it will list all topics containing at least one reference in alphabetical order. For each topic, the index lists the page numbers of every page that references that topic. The index may also include cross-references which suggest to the reader to look at a related topic.

About text styles in indexing

When you insert an index, index-specific text styles are created and applied automatically; these styles can be customised via the Text Styles panel.

The Index and Index Entry paragraph styles are 'parent' styles which let you apply formatting to the whole index or just index entries, respectively. The Index Section Heading paragraph style affects the large letters and numbers by which entries are organised.

Examples of the Index and Index Entry text styles
An example index (A) styled entirely by the Index text style.
Examples of the Index and Index Entry text styles
Example text ranges affected by the Index Section Heading (B) and Index Entry (C) text styles.

A sequence of paragraph styles is created for however many levels of sub topic exist in the index, e.g. Index Entry 1, Index Entry 2, Index Entry 3 and so on. This allows each level of nested index entry to have different formatting than Index Entry and other 'higher level' index entries. For example, you might choose to show entries for sub topics at a smaller font size than top-level topics.

Examples of hierarchical Index Entry text styles
Example text ranges affected by numbered Index Entry text styles: Index Entry 1 (D), Index Entry 2 (E) and Index Entry 3 (F) paragraph styles, which modify any formatting already applied by the parent Index Entry text style.

The Index Entry Page Number and Index Entry Number Separator character styles allow specific details in index entries—meaning text added to entries by the Labels and Separators options on the Index panel—to deviate from the Index Entry parent style. For example, you may wish for page numbers/ranges and punctuation between them to be differently coloured than topic names, and from each other.

Examples of the Index Entry Page Number and Index Entry Number Separator text styles
Example text ranges in an index entry affected by the Index Entry Page Number (G) and Index Entry Number Separator (H) text styles.

Further, the various components of cross-reference text in index entries can be customised using the Index Cross-reference, Index Cross-reference Label and Index Cross-referenced Topic character styles.

Examples of Index Cross-reference text styles
Example text ranges in an index entry's cross-references affected by the Index Cross-reference (I), Index Cross-reference Label (J), and Index Cross-referenced Topic (K) text styles.

Inserting an index

You can insert an index, insert index marks, update the index and show/hide index marks from the Text menu's Index section.

Alternatively, from the Index panel, you can insert an index, add, edit and delete topics and marks, update the index style, search for index entries, and update index content as you go.

Insert index To generate an index:
  1. From the Text menu, click Index and then select Insert Index.
  2. You can then add topics and markers to your index and adjust the formatting from within the Index panel.
Insert index To generate an index via the Index panel:
  1. From the Window menu, select References>Index.
  2. From the top of the Index panel, select Insert Index.
  3. You can then add topics and markers to your index and adjust the formatting from within the panel.

Adding index marks and topics

Index marks can be created and inserted into your publication text via the Text menu, or from the Index panel. The panel also lets you navigate your index marks and generate your index once you've finished adding index marks and topics.

Sorting index topics

Normally, Affinity sorts index topics by their literal topic names. So, topic names that begin with A or The, for example, will appear in the index under A or T, respectively.

You can override the default sort order for any individual topic by providing alternative Sort By text. For example, if a topic's name is The Great Wall of China, you would type Great Wall of China in the topic's Sort By setting to have the topic appear under G in the index.

Insert index mark To insert index marks:

With an index inserted:

  1. From the Text menu, click Index and then select Insert Index Mark.
  2. The topic name will be pre-filled with the word or phrase at the insertion point. Existing topics that may be similar to the word at the insertion point will also be suggested. Type in the box to search through existing topics. You can select an existing topic from the suggestion list using either the cursor keys or the mouse.
  3. If you are selecting a sub topic, both the Topic and the Parent Topic will be selected. If you are creating a new topic, you may specify either a new or existing Parent Topic.
  4. To specify a character style to use for the page number when this index mark appears in the index, select a style from the Style Override menu.
Insert index mark To insert index marks via the Index panel:

With an index inserted:

  1. With a word or phrase highlighted in the text, from the top of the Index panel, select Insert Marker.
  2. The topic name will be pre-filled with the highlighted word or phrase at the insertion point. Existing topics that may be similar to the word at the insertion point will also be suggested. Type in the box to search through existing topics. You can select an existing topic from the suggestion list using either the cursor keys or the mouse.
  3. If you are selecting a sub topic, both the Topic and the Parent Topic will be selected. If you are creating a new topic, you may specify either a new or existing Parent Topic.
  4. To specify a character style to use for the page number when this index mark appears in the index, select a style from the Style Override menu.
To add a topic:

From the Index panel:

  1. Select Add Topic.
  2. From here, you can add a Topic Name, assign a Parent Topic, set the topic's Sort By text, and select a cross reference from the See option.
To search for content related to index topics within your document:

From the Index panel:

  1. -click a topic name and select Find in Document.
  2. All related words will be immediately listed in the panel. From here, you can select specific instances of the word to add to the index by ticking the check box to the right of each instance you would like to add, or select all instances of the word by ticking the All checkbox.
  3. When you are happy with your selections, click Done to add the selected instance(s) of the word to your topic.
To rename an index entry:

From the Index panel:

To edit an index entry:

From the Index panel:

  1. -click on an index entry and select Edit Topic.
  2. From here, you can edit the Topic Name, assign a Parent Topic, and set the topic's Sort By text.
To add a sub topic:

From the Index panel:

  1. -click on an index entry and select Add sub topic.
  2. From here, you can add a Topic Name, assign a Parent Topic, set the topic's Sort By text, and select a cross reference from the See option.
To add an index cross reference:

From the Index panel, do one of the following:

To locate an index entry in the document:

From the Index panel:

  1. -click on an index entry and select Find in document.
  2. Instances in which the index entry or any of its sub topics appear in the document will be listed in the panel. From here, you can select an individual instance or opt to view all instances using the checkboxes. Clicking on any of the listed instances will take you directly to that instance in the document.
To add leader lines between items and page numbers:
  1. Select a text frame that contains an index.
  2. On the Index panel (Window>References>Index), delete all existing characters from the Separator field.
  3. Click the downwards-pointing arrow on the field and insert a Tab character.
  4. On the Text Styles panel, double-click the Index Entry style.
  5. Select Tab Stops on the left of the Edit Text Style dialog.
  6. To the right, click Add New Tab Stop and click the new tab stop's ‘…’ button.
  7. Next to Leader, select the Tab stop leader character, Tab stop leader underline, or Tab stop leader strikeout setting.
  8. (Optional) If you chose the leader character setting, type the glyph to repeat along the leader line in the Character field.
  9. Click OK.

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