Index

About indexes

An index is a valuable reader aid in a long publication, such as a report or manual. Building the content for your index and inserting the index into your document is a straightforward process. To summarise:

On the Index panel, add a topic you wish to appear in your publication's index.
Wherever related text appears in your publication, use the Index panel to insert an index mark.
Repeat steps 1 and 2 until you've created topics and index marks for all entries you wish to appear in the index.
Create an insertion point in your document where you wish the index to appear, then use the Index panel to insert the index.

The inserted index will list, in alphabetical order, all topics for which there is at least one index mark, along with page numbers for the corresponding index marks.

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.

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.

Adding topics and index marks

Index marks can be inserted into your publication text via the Index panel. Each index mark is assigned to a topic or sub-topic.

When inserted, you can assign an index mark to an existing topic or sub-topic, or add a new topic and assign the index mark to it.

Optionally, you can create the topics that will appear in your index ahead of inserting index marks.

Editing topics

You can rename existing topics and sub-topics. This affects their position in the index.

A parent topic can be set for any existing topic or sub-topic, creating a hierarchy that is visually reflected in the index.

It is also possible to specify Sort By text for topics and sub-topics in order to override index positions without changing names. For example, you might wish to convey the hierarchical importance of sub-topics rather than list them alphabetically.

Inserting the index

After adding topics and sub-topics and inserting index marks, you can use the Index panel to generate an index from them and insert it into your document.

If you edit topics, sub-topics or index marks after inserting the index, you will need to update the inserted index to reflect these changes.

To insert an index mark:

With a word or phrase selected in your document's text, tap Insert Marker on the Index panel.
The topic name will be pre-filled with the highlighted word or phrase at the insertion point. Existing topics will also be suggested. Do one of the following:
- To assign the index mark to the pre-filled topic name, tap OK. If the topic does not already exist, it is automatically created.
- To assign the index mark to an existing topic of a different name, type in the box to filter the list of topics, then tap the required topic name.
- To create a new topic and assign the index mark to it, enter the topic name in the box, then tap OK.

Alternatively, create an insertion point or select some text in your document, long press an existing topic or sub-topic on the Index panel, then tap Insert.

To add a topic (without inserting an index mark):

On the Index panel, tap Add Topic.
Enter the topic's name.
Tap OK.

The topic will not be listed in the inserted index unless you assign index marks to it.

To add a sub-topic:

On the Index panel, long press an existing topic or sub-topic.
On the menu that appears, tap Add sub-topic.
Enter the sub-topic's name.
Tap OK.

To add an index cross reference:

On the Index panel, long press an existing topic or sub-topic.
On the menu that appears, tap Add cross reference.
Type a full or partial topic name. Tap OK if you've typed the name in full, or tap a matching topic in the list of suggestions (whose contents are filtered as you type).

To edit a topic or sub-topic:

On the Index panel, long press an existing topic or sub-topic.
On the menu that appears, tap Edit.

To delete a topic or sub-topic:

On the Index panel, long press an existing topic or sub-topic.
On the menu that appears, tap Delete.

Any index marks assigned to the topic are also deleted.

To go to an index mark in your document:

On the Index panel, long press the corresponding index entry, i.e. an item listed below a topic or sub-topic.
Tap Show.

An insertion point is created at the index mark and the document view focuses on it.

To show/hide index marks in the document view:

On the Index panel, tap Show/Hide Index Marks.

To delete an index mark:

Do one of the following:

On the Index panel, long press the entry for the index mark, then tap Delete.
In the document view, create an insertion point immediately after the index mark, then press the on the on-screen keyboard or on your hardware keyboard.

To insert the index:

Create an insertion point in a text frame.
On the Index panel, tap Insert Index.

To update the inserted index:

On the Index panel, tap Update Index.