Index pages in word

An index lists the terms and topics that are discussed in a document, along with the pages that they appear on. To create an index, you mark the index entries by providing the name of the main entry and the cross-reference in your document, and then you build the index.

You can create an index entry for an individual word, phrase, or symbol, for a topic that spans a range of pages, or that refers to another entry, such as «Transportation. See Bicycles.» When you select text and mark it as an index entry, Word adds a special XE (Index Entry) field that includes the marked main entry and any cross-reference information that you choose to include.

After you mark all the index entries, you choose an index design and build the finished index. Word collects the index entries, sorts them alphabetically, references their page numbers, finds and removes duplicate entries from the same page, and displays the index in the document.

Mark the entries

These steps show you how to mark words or phrases for your index, but you can also Mark index entries for text that spans a range of pages.

1. Select the text you’d like to use as an index entry, or just click where you want to insert the entry.

2. On the References tab, in the Index group, click Mark Entry.
   

3. You can edit the text in the Mark Index Entry dialog box.
   

   • You can add a second-level in the Subentry box. If you need a third level, follow the subentry text with a colon.

   • To create a cross-reference to another entry, click Cross-reference under Options, and then type the text for the other entry in the box.

   • To format the page numbers that will appear in the index, select the Bold check box or Italic check box below Page number format.

4. Click Mark to mark the index entry. To mark this text everywhere it shows up in the document, click Mark All.

5. To mark additional index entries, select the text, click in the Mark Index Entry dialog box, and then repeat steps 3 and 4.

Create the index

After you mark the entries, you’re ready to insert the index into your document.

1. Click where you want to add the index.

2. On the References tab, in the Index group, click Insert Index.
   

3. In the Index dialog box, you can choose the format for text entries, page numbers, tabs, and leader characters.
   

4. You can change the overall look of the index by choosing from the Formats dropdown menu. A preview is displayed in the window to the top left.

5. Click OK.

Edit or format an index entry and update the index

If you mark more entries after creating your index, you’ll need to update the index to see them.

1. If you don’t see the XE fields, click Show/Hide in the Paragraph group on the Home tab.

2. Find the XE field for the entry that you want to change, for example, { XE «Callisto» t «See Moons» }.

3. To edit or format an index entry, change the text inside the quotation marks.

4. To update the index, click the index, and then press F9. Or click Update Index in the Index group on the References tab.

   

If you find an error in the index, locate the index entry that you want to change, make the change, and then update the index.

Delete an index entry and update the index

1. Select the entire index entry field, including the braces ({}), and then press DELETE.

   If you don’t see the XE fields, click Show/Hide in the Paragraph group on the Home tab.

2. To update the index, click the index, and then press F9. Or click Update Index in the Index group on the References tab.

   

Is this article up to date?

Retaining reader’s attention is one of the biggest challenges for authors writing lengthy content. Many users do not read the documents and books from start to end. They will go through the sections of their interest and skip remaining content. Keeping this in mind, Microsoft Word helps authors to create quick navigational structures on long documents. Index page is one such a feature in Word and here we will explain how to create index page in Microsoft Word.

If you are struggling with slow Word, learn how to fix slow Word document and speed up your work.

What is an Index Page?

Index is a page located at the end of the document containing keywords along with the page numbers where they were used in the document. It helps readers to navigate to the page quickly for their interested keywords. Below is an example of index page in a hard binding book.

Note: Users confuse index page with table of content. TOC or table of content contains headings in a document at the beginning. Index page contains keywords and inserted at the end. Some authors may also insert keywords at the bottom of each page like explaining vocabulary used on that page.

Structure of an Index Page

As you can see in the above screenshot, an index page contains different kind of information. Let us say, you want to find information related to the keyword “categories”.

• You can get the details of the “categories” topic under page number 61.
• This is a subsection of the main topic under “Add New Post screen”.
• It is indexed under alphabet “A”.

In addition, you can find some terms also have multiple or range of page reference. Let us dive into Microsoft Word on how to create such index page for your document.

Preparing Keywords for Your Index Page

After completing your document, first step in inserting an index page is to prepare the keywords you want to show on the index page. Decide whether you want to show a specific page reference or all occurrences of the keywords on different pages. You do not need to worry about the page numbers; you only need to identify the keywords for your index.

Defining Index Keywords

After having a list of keywords, you can define index entries for each keyword.

• In order to define an index entry, first select the keyword on your document.
• Go to “References” menu and click on “Mark Entry” button under “Index” group.

• You will see a “Mark Index Entry” dialog box like below.

Mark Index Entry Options

Though the dialog box is small, it has many options. You have to use those options to decide how the entries on the index page will look like.

• By default, Word will identify the selected term as a “Main entry”. You can change this later, if needed.
• In the field below, it is possible to define an optional “Subentry” that will also show in the index page.
• In the “Options” section, you can determine the reference for the term in the index page. By default, “Current Page” is the reference for the selected word.
• The “Cross-Reference” lets you refer to other index entries. In this case, enter the corresponding term in the field. You can also refer to bookmarks contained in the document by choosing “Page range” option.
• Select the page number format as bold or italic.

After finalizing the options, you can create the index entry by clicking on the “Mark” button. The dialogue window remains open so that you can define further entries by selecting and applying mark entries. If you want to index multiple occurrences of the same term, use “Mark All” button. In this way, the text is defined throughout the document as an index entry with spelling that is identical. You can close the dialog box by clicking on the “Cancel” button.

Understanding Index Formatting

Word will apply formatting marks when you click on “Mark” button. You can find the mark as XE in the curly brackets like below:

XE indicates index entry and the b and i are for bold and italic respectively. You can find other formatting marks depending upon the selection for subentry and headings. If you wish to delete the index entry, delete the formatting marks for the index entry within the curly bracket.

In order to hide the formatting marks on the document, go to “Home” menu and click on the “Show/Hide” icon.

Inserting Index Entries

As soon as you are finished with creating index entries, you can start inserting them into your document. Mostly you will do this at the end of your document. Press “Control + End” to go to the end of your document and place the cursor there.

• Go to “References” menu and click on “Insert Index”.

• You will see “Index” dialog box like below.
• First, choose the control field “Right align page numbers”.
• Underneath this, the “Tab leader” can be determined between entry and page number. If you have defined subentries, these may appear retracted in a more narrow line or consecutively, that is to say in the same line as the main entry with each one separated by a semicolon.

• It is also possible to choose a different design for the index. In order to do this, open the list box “Formats”. Select the entry “Modern” and confirm with “OK”.
• It will create the index with all the terms you have marked for indexing before and sorted in alphabetical order.

Note: Similar to table of contents, it is also possible with index to edit the style of the entries. The style sheets are assigned to the individual levels “Index 1” to “Index 9” and for “Index Heading”. Whenever you change the formatting of a level, Word will apply the new formatting to the remaining entries of that level.

Updating Index Terms

When you expand or shorten your document, it may happen that contents you are referring move to a different page. In order to keep your index entries correct, you can update them.

• To update, place the cursor in the index.
• Then activate the command “Update Index” in the menu in the ribbon.
• Alternatively, right click on the index and choose “Update field” option.

You can also use the keyboard shortcut: when the cursor is inside of the index, press the function key F9.

An index can usually be found at the end of a document, listing the key words and phrases in a document, along with the page numbers they appear on. There are two steps involved in creating an index: defining which words you want to appear in the index and then inserting the index.

Insert an Index Entry

1. Select the text you want to include in the index.
2. Click the References tab.
3. Click the Mark Entry in the Index group.

   

The Mark Index Entry dialog box opens, where you can set up how the index entry works. The main entry field is filled with the selected text, and you can also add a subentry that will appear below the main entry.

4. Adjust the index entry’s settings and choose an index entry option:
• Cross-reference: Adds a reference to another index entry, instead of listing the current page number.
• Current page: Lists the current page number for the selected index entry. This is the default option.
• Page range: Lists the range of pages that are included in the bookmark that you click in the Bookmark list. Before using this option, you’ll need to create a bookmark of the selected range.
5. Click the Mark or Mark All button.

   

Clicking Mark will create an index entry for the selected instance of the word. Clicking Mark All will instead create an index entry for every instance of the selected word throughout the document.

Once you mark an entry, formatting marks will be displayed so that you can see the hidden text that marks index entries. The window remains open, so you can continue to mark index entries throughout the document.

6. Repeat the process for your other index entries.
7. Click Close when you’re done.

   

Index entries are invisible and will not be printed. However, you can see them when the paragraph marks are turned on.

Insert an Index

Once index entries have been marked, you’re ready to insert the index.

1. Click in your document where you want to insert an index.

Indexes usually appear at the end of a document and can take up a lot of space, so a blank page at the end is ideal.

2. Click the Insert Index button on the References tab.

   

The Index dialog box opens, where you can set up how the index will appear.

You can choose whether to right align page numbers and select a tab leader that appears between text and page numbers. You can also select whether to use a document’s formatting theme or select another one.

You can choose whether subentries will be indented below the main entry or shown run-in style in a paragraph below the main entry.

3. Customize the appearance and behavior of the index.

Any changes you make to the index appearance will be shown in the Print Preview.

4. Click OK.

   

The index is inserted, automatically filling itself out with all the index entries in the document.

Update an Index

When you insert an index, it automatically adds every index entry in the document. If you add or modify index entries after the index is created, you’ll need to update the index.

1. Click anywhere in the index.
2. Click the Update button.

   

The index is updated, adding any newly created entries while updating the page numbers for any entries that may have moved.

FREE Quick Reference

Click to Download

Free to distribute with our compliments; we hope you will consider our paid training.

1.  Creating a Word Index using Mark & Index

{ XE “index entry text” }

But don’t worry — when you print your document, the field codes are not printed.

(a) Marking a main entry

To mark an entry:

    The Mark Index Entry dialog box is displayed. The text that you highlighted is displayed in the Main Entry box. This is the text that will appear in the index. You can modify it if you wish.

(b) Marking a subentry

Subentries are a powerful way of grouping similar items in an index. Let’s say we wanted to index various sub-entries around the main word Console:

1.  Find the word 3DS in the text and select it.

2.  Press Alt+ Shift + X

3.  Enter ‘Console‘ into the Main Entry and ‘3DS‘ into the Subentry. Entries will appear in the index exactly as you type them so take care not to misspell anything and be consistent with upper case and lower case.

4.  Click the Mark or Mark
All buttons.

(c) Cross-referencing another indexed item

1.  Select the text to be marked.

2.  Press ALT + SHIFT + X

3.  Confirm the text in the Main Entry box.

4.  Select the Cross-Reference radio button.

5.  After “See” type the synonymous text item.

(d) Compile the Word Index

Now that all the entries have been marked it is time to create the index itself.

1.  Select the References tab.

2.  Click the Insert Index icon in the Index group. The Index dialog is displayed.

3.  Choose a Format from the drop-down list. Be aware that different formats select, deselect or change some of the other options in the dialog. The safest approach is to start at the bottom left  and work upwards, then to the right.

4.  Ensure that Right-align page numbers is selected.

5.  Select a tab leader (the tab leader fills the gap between the end of the item and the page number — dots work best).

6.  Choose whether to use Run-In or Indent (watch the preview).

7.  Choose how many columns to display in the index.

8.  Click OK

(e) Update the index (whenever needed)

1.  MIn the document, mark any new text you wish to include in the index and remove any existing XE field codes that you no longer require.

2.  Click anywhere on the index to show grey shading.

2. How to remove all field codes from a document

Ideally, a document should be finished before creating an index, but if significant changes have occurred you may want to clear any XE field codes throughout the document and start from scratch. Here’s a simple process to get that job done.  

1.  Press CTRL H to display the Replace dialog. Alternatively, click the Find & Select icon on the far-right side of the Home ribbon, then choose Replace.

2.  In the Find box, type ^d (press SHIFT 6 to get ^).

3.  Leave the Replace box empty.

4.  Click Replace All (or Find then Replace to process one by one).

3. How to create a Word index using a concordance file

Many editors use a concordance file to generate an index for a document. A concordance file is a two-column table that is created in a separate document.

(a) Mark entries within a Word document using the pre-prepared concordance file

1.  Select the References tab.

2.  Click the Insert Index icon in the Index group.

3.  Click the AutoMark.. button.

4.  Locate and select the concordance file and click OK . All entries are now marked.

(b) Create the index

1.  Select References | Insert Index again.

2.  Set your index preferences as discussed in Step 2: Compiling the index (above).

3.  Click OK.

(c) Update the concordance and/or index

1.  Open the concordance file, make your changes and save the file.

2.  Clear the current XE codes in the main document (as described previously).

3.  Select References | Insert Index | Automark.

4.  Click on the existing index to display the grey shading.

4. Key Takeaways

And that, my friend, is how you build an index page in Word.

As a user, when creating a lengthy document in Microsoft Word, an index is a convenient tool for your potential readers. Normally, we get to see indexes in the backs of books. They allow readers to look up a word or phrase to find the page referencing that topic.

In the same way, in a table of contents in Microsoft Word, users can insert an index and then update it automatically. This takes much of the manual work out of creating these great reference sources. Here, users will be shown how to create the index and also update it in Word.

Listed below are steps to create an index in word.

1. Mark Your Entries.
2. Edit or Remove Index Entries.
3. Update the Index.
4. Create an Index Automatically in Microsoft Word

Now we will have a look at each step as we proceed below-

1] Mark Your Index Entries

Word can build your index automatically, but it’s smart enough to know which items you want in it. So for users to create an index, they will need to mark the entries. This is the bulk of the work you will do for the index. But once you start marking entries, you will be able to zip through them quickly.

Open Microsoft Word document and go to the References tab. Select your first index entry by dragging your cursor through it.

In the ribbon, you will see the Index section toward the right side. Select the Mark Entry button.

A pop-up window will appear for you to describe your entry. This window can remain open while you select your remaining entries. Enter the Main entry at the top and optionally a Subentry.

Then choose from Options for a cross-reference, the current page, or a page range.

Or you can format the page number that displays in bold and/or italic.

Click on Mark for a single entry or Mark All to mark that same text everywhere in your document.

When you are done with the Mark Index Entry window, click on Close.

On the document, index entries are labeled with XE. If you add a Subentry or cross-reference, you will notice that within the XE tag as well.

If you do not see your XE tags but would like to, go to the Home tab and click the Show/Hide Paragraph button.

2] Edit or Remove Index Entries

If users need to make a change to an entry, for instance, remove a cross-reference, they will do so within that XE field. Make the changes inside the quotation marks. Another option is to remove the marked entry and then mark it again.

Also, to remove an index entry, select all text within and including the braces { } and hit Delete. You can then follow the steps above to mark the entry again with the changes you want.

3] Create the Index in Word

When about to insert your index, move the cursor to the spot you want it in the document. Then, select the References tab and click Insert Index.

Before the index is created, you have a few settings you can adjust if you like. These are Print Preview, Tab Leader, Formats Type and Columns.

After you make your index adjustments, click OK. Your index will pop into your document with your entries. You’ll see everything nice and neat and in alphabetical order.

4] Update the Index

Users can continue to mark additional entries after creating the index and simply updating it. And if you edit or remove entries, you will need to update the index as well.

Click inside the index area in your document, the Update Index button in the ribbon on the References tab will come alive. If the button is still grayed out as shown in the image above, make sure your cursor is within the index.

If you want to remove the index completely, select all of its text and tap the Delete key. You will then likely want to delete the index entries (as seen above) if you don’t plan to use an index at all.

5] Create an Index Automatically in Word

It may take some time to mark all the entries you want in your Word index. But an index can be a valuable tool for your readers. So consider adding one if your audience can benefit from it for your next Word document, book, or other lengthy material.

If this was helpful, you might also like – How to use linked text in Microsoft Word.

We’re going to talk about creating indexes in Microsoft Word. ‘Real’ books often have an index at the back which Word can create for you.

An index is a list of terms or topics that can be found within the document. Microsoft Word has the ‘fixings’ to make an index and automatic options to take some of the drudgery

These days, indexes aren’t as common as they once were.  Online documents (in Word format, web pages or PDF) can be easily searched using Ctrl + F, making an index less needed.  

Indexes still have a place, especially in printed books. Unfortunately, creating an index in Microsoft Word can be difficult and time-consuming to do on a large scale. This isn’t a slight against Word whose features are mostly adequate, but rather a testament to a conceptually difficult process that needs human judgement.  There are professional indexers for a reason.

Hence this series in Office for Mere Mortals, starting this week with the basics; setting up a document to be indexed and then making a simple index.

Word’s Indexing features have barely changed in well over twenty years! Some button positions have moved but the core technology, field codes and shortcut are the same as in Word 6 from 1993.

Indexing in Word – the overview

In short, here’s how indexing works in Word.

Entries are created by selecting parts of the text and adding an Index Entry.  They are hidden from normal views of the document but do show up with the right settings.

This is an Index Entry {XE} for the term ‘Sherlock Holmes’.

The Index itself is made by Word which compiles all the {XE} entries into a list like this:

The {XE} we added above, appears in the Index as a reference to page 1 in the text.

Word has some dialog boxes to make formatting the index easy but underneath that is a field code.

Don’t panic … we’ll explain all this as we go along.

Preparing your first Index

Before jumping in at the deep end, we recommend that you first create a copy of your document (or another smaller document) to practice upon without having to worry about messing up the real thing. A file with a large index can get extremely complicated and confusing if you’re not certain about what you’re doing.

When you have grasped both the fundamental and, perhaps, more complex indexing techniques, come up with a method that suits your needs, then you can transfer your knowledge onto the real document without any problems.

Creating an index for an existing document involves two distinct steps:

• marking index entries
• generating the index

Making or marking a simple Index Entry

An index entry is a Microsoft Word “field code” that marks specific text for inclusion in an index. When you mark text as an index entry, Word inserts an { XE “Index Entry” } field formatted as hidden text.

To use existing document text as an index entry, first select a word or phrase that you wish to include in your index or just place the cursor at the right-place in the document. To enter your own text as an index entry instead, simply click where you want to insert it.

Use the Alt + Shift + X keyboard shortcut to insert index entries.

On the ribbon, go to “Reference | Index | Mark Entry” to bring up the “Mark Index Entry” dialog box.

The Mark Index Entry dialog box provides “Main entry” and “Subentry” boxes.

Main Entry

Most terms will fall under the “Main entry” category – a single term with its corresponding page number(s). The selected text is automatically inserted but you can change that, and often will.

Sub-entry

Or use the “Main entry” as a general heading or category for a collection of other terms otherwise known as subentries. For example, the main index entry “Animals” could have subentries “Birds” and “Mammals” – each which would be entered separately.

Here we’ve given Dr Watson a sub-entry for his weapon of choice.

Which appears in the index like this, below and usually indented from the main entry.

Add a few index entries then you’re ready to make your first index.

A short aside for our Mac friends. According to Microsoft’s documentation, Word for Mac doesn’t have ANY in-built shortcut for Mark Index entry. No we could not beleive it either so we dug a little deeper.

There is an in-built Mark Index Entry shortcut Command + Option + Shift + X. It’s listed at Tools | Customize Keyboard.

If you think that shortcut is clumsy (we do), try changing it to Control + Shift + X . That’s the closest we could get to the Winword shortcut (Alt+Shift+X isn’t possible in Word for Mac).

Show all

After marking an index entry, you will notice that the show hidden text and show all character options have both been enabled by Word. That’s so you can see and find index entries.

{XE} is the Word field code for Index Entry.

In the double-quotes is the index label. Each sub-level is separated by a colon e.g. “Dr Watson:Revolver” is the Main and Sub entry.

b  is the switch to add Bold formatting to that index entry.  We’ll look at other switches later.

Create a simple Index in Word

Now there’s a few index entries in the document, let’s make an index from them.

Click the cursor at the end of your document (or wherever you want your index to appear), then navigate to “Reference | Index | Insert Index”

The Index dialog gives you a number of formatting options. The current formatting settings are displayed in the “Preview” pane.

Type: Indented or Run-in

The “Type” radio-button allows you to specify either an “Indented” or “Run-in” type of hierarchical display. You’ve already seen the common Indented index, here’s the run-in alternative:

Run-in takes less vertical space than Indented.

Columns

Another way to save space with an index is adding columns.

The “Columns” box allows you to specify the number of columns that the index will be displayed on per page.  It’s much the same as Word’s normal multi-column support but lacks some of the column formatting choices.

The columns can be adjusted from the ruler.  If you want better column control (like vertical lines between columns), try inserting multiple columns from the Layout tab then putting a single column index inside the multi-column section.

Right align page numbers

“Right align page numbers” checkbox gives more of a “Table of Contents” look to the index.

Tab leader are the characters between the entry and page number, they guide the eye along the line.

Index Formats

The “Formats” drop down box gives you a number of pre-defined styles to choose from that can be seen in the preview pane. The available styles haven’t changed much over the years, in Word 365 are:

• From template
• Classic
• Fancy
• Modern
• Bulleted
• Formal
• Simple

To design a custom style click the “Modify” button, choose a style and customize as you see fit.

When you are happy with your index layout as it appears in the preview pane, click the “OK” button and your index will be displayed in all its glory.

If you have made any changes to your index entries, always remember to click anywhere on your index and press F9 for those changes to appear in the index itself. Or right-click then Update Field.

That’s enough to get you started. In future articles we’ll look at the many hidden options in Word’s indexing plus some of its shortcomings.

Outlook is stopping Windows Indexing and how to fix it
How to STOP a specific document from being searched / indexed?
Match and Index lookup in Excel

This Index in Word tutorial is suitable for users of Word 2010/2013/2016/2019 and Microsoft 365.  

Objective 

Mark entries in a long document for inclusion in the index. Create an index in Word from scratch and understand how to edit and update it.  

Indexing Explained 

An index lists the terms and topics discussed in a document listed in alphabetical order. It is usually located at the end of a document. It allows the reader to quickly jump to pages of interest by clicking on the page number associated with the index entry. To create an index in Word, you must first go through the document and mark points of interest as index entries. Once complete, the index can be inserted. 

It is important to remember to update the index if anything in the document changes to ensure that the page numbers still correspond with the topic.  Note, an Index page is different from a Contents Page!

Video Tutorial 

Marking Index Entries 

In this example, I have a document that spans 9 pages. It contains various headings that have been marked with Word heading styles. To create an index in Word, I first need to go through the document and mark each heading that I want to appear in the index.  

1. Select the heading that you want to mark 

1. Click the References tab 

1. From the Index group, click the Mark Entry button or press the Alt+Shift+X keyboard shortcut 

1. Review the options in the Mark Index Entry dialog box 

1. Click Mark 

Word will automatically turn on Show/Hide, and you will see the field code behind the entry. Do not worry too much about this as it will disappear once Show/Hide is turned off again.  

Continue through the document marking entries in the same way.  

NOTE: You will need to click Close on the Mark Entry dialog box each time you mark an entry.  

Mark Index Subentries 

To add structure and hierarchy to the index, you can mark entries as subentries of main entries. These subentries will appear indented underneath the main entry they are linked to in the index.  

In this example, ‘House Stark’, ‘House Lannister’, and ‘House Targaryen’ are sub-headings of ‘Cast and Characters’. I can show this hierarchy in the index by marking them as subentries. This means they will be indented in the index.  

1. Select the subentry text i.e. ‘House Stark’ 

1. Click Mark Entry 

1. Press Ctrl+C to copy the selected Main Entry text to the Clipboard. 

1. Position the insertion point in the Subentry text box. 

1. Press Ctrl+V to paste the text into the Subentry text box. 

1. Change the information in the Main Entry text box to indicate the main index entry to which this subentry should be subordinate. 

1. Click on Mark 

Continue through the document marking subentries in the same way.  

Create an Index 

Once you have marked all entries to be included in the index, you can add the index to the bottom of the document.  

1. Scroll to the last page of the document (preferably a blank page) 

1. Click the References tab 

1. From the Index group, click Insert Index 

Review the options in the Index dialog box. In this example, I have chosen to right-align page numbers and use a dotted tab leader between the entry and the page number.  

1. Click OK 

Notice that the subentries are indented.  

Add an Index Heading 

You may want to add a heading for your index. You may also want to include the index heading as an index entry.  

1. Type a name for your index and apply a heading style if desired 

1. Select the Index heading 

1. Click the References tab 

1. Click Mark Entry 

Update an Index 

To include the new entry in the index, you will need to update it.  

1. Click anywhere in the index 

1. Click the References tab 

1. Click Update Index 

The index heading is now included in the index.  

For more information about creating indexes in Word, please check out the following links: 

Microsoft – Create and Update an Index 

TechRepublic – How to add an index to a Word document using index tags 

If you are interested in learning more about Microsoft Word, then take a look at the following free resources:

• How to Create and Print Envelopes in Word
• How to Create a Contents Page in Word
• How to Mail Merge in Word
• How to Print Labels in Word

To learn Word with Simon Sez IT. Take a look at the Word courses we have available.