Indexing

As stated before, an index is one of the most important aspects of a good document. Especially in printed formats, it is one of the main ways that most readers find the information they need.

Knowing what to put in your index makes the difference between a good or bad index. Word processors have got us used to the type of indexing where you think of a keyword and then mark every occurrence of it throughout the document. This is a very poor way of indexing, because it does not take context into account, and usually produces a list containing many meaningless entries.

A good index should let your readers find every pertinent statement made in your document. To create a good index for your document, make entries for:

• Variations of the topic's heading.
• The main concepts in the topic.
• Categorization of subjects.
• Synonyms.
• Cross references, or entries that point to other entries in your index. For example, Modifying, See Changing.

Indexing is a whole subject in its own right and we have only scratched the surface here. If you want more detailed information on indexing, there are many fine books on the subject that are available from most public libraries and book stores.

Author-it's Indexing Objects

Author-it provides two objects to help you build a good index. First is the Index object, this object is the index itself and will automatically create a basic index for you. The second is the Index Entry object, which represents a single entry in the index.

You can create headings and sub-headings in your index. This is achieved by moving your Index Entry objects into a hierarchy within the Index object. When you do this, it is recommended that you use a title case for the heading and lower case for all entries under that heading.