Indexing WORD Documents

References and tutorials

Good description of the Concordance file approach  http://www.tekdok.com/indexing.htm
  MS Support description of Indexing through field codes http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q125/9/37.asp?LN=EN-US&SD=gn&FR=0

Index entries using page ranges
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q196/6/74.ASP?LN=EN-US&SD=gn&FR=0

  MS knowledgebase troubleshooting on Indexing (or whatever else you want tot search for)
http://search.support.microsoft.com/kb/c.asp?ln=en-us

An Outline of what we are doing in this exercise

The general approach to setting up automatic index tables is
  1.  mark entries in the text,
    1.  specify text to be indexed
    2.  Index entry to associate this text with
    3.  Automatically find and mark this same text string throughout the document
  2.  Usually at the end of the document-Insert the Index
  3.  Specify styles for the text in the Index
Indexes can be updated either by F9; or right click, update; or rebuilding from the start by Insert, tables, index.

Mark entries in the text:

One way is to set up a concordance file that lists strings to be searched for and marked, along with the associated term used in the index.  for example, incidents of the string "Corvettes" might be listed in the index under "Automobiles"

See How to make a concordance file from an existing embedded index in Microsoft WORD.


But, if you are starting from scratch, it's probably best for someone who knows the topic well to walk through the text and mark strings directly, then get WORD to mark all the remaining incidents of that text throughout the work.

Select the text string to be used and marked by double-clicking on the word, or dragging over it with the mouse. More control can be exercised in marking partial text strings by using shift and the arrow keys to highlight.  Caution--if there is a tag in the middle of a text string it will interfere with the find function if applied for that text string.

After selecting, push alt-shift X. A dialogue box opens allowing you to specify the index entry to associate with the marked text.  Click the Mark ALL button and WORD will search the document and mark all occurences of that text string. Specific tags can always be edited directly or deleted if they show up in curious places like the table of contents. turn on non-printing marks to see them, then edit as needed.

After marking text, insert the index at the end of the document by putting the cursor at the insertion point and clicking insert, Index and tables, Index.  Select the format parameters you want and click okay. After inserting the index, you can mark more entries or edit specific tags in the text then update to incorporate changes by right clicking on the index and updating.
I won't check on this, but you should be aware when you are doing this for real, that when marks are turned on, everything shifts because of the extra text displayed on the screen. The final update of page numbers in the index should be done with marks turned off so the page numbers are right.

Clicking on different parts of the index, note that there are new paragraph styles associated with entries and headings.  These can be changed by the usual format style modification procedures. modify the styles so that fonts in the index are at least 14 point.
 
 

The Assignment:

Add an index to the end of the Wizard of Oz document that includes at least one entry for each letter of the alphabet.
Do these with mark all, so most entries will have more than one page reference.
Reformat the styles used on the index to make the type larger, if necessary, so the fonts are at least 14 point.
 

Before you make this change to your word document, go into tools options save and make sure allow fast saves and save autorecover are turned off. This should avoid problems with the file size fluctuating wildly and exceeding capacity of the floppy disk.

Look through your document and make sure it meets all the requirements listed on the webpages for this assignment before turning in the disk for grading. be sure to look at the drop-down styleslist and note that the style definitions are actually modified and that you didn't just directly reformat text to get the book into larger size type.

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