It shouldn't matter where in the field code you put the \e switch. Now that you've done that, click anywhere in the index (or the field code) and press F9 to update it.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

Hi Macropod, so some time back on this thread I had asked:

And you had replied:

Ultimately, to get the job done properly I followed your guidance and did just this -- switched the format of page numbers back to the basic format, and went through the 300 pages of the book and typed the hyphens before and after the page # field. Since then I've been involved in other aspects of book. Today I got back to the index, and used the concordance field to mark all the entries in my file. I created the index just now, and it came out great!!! Thank you so much, it looks beautiful.

I do have a follow up question: I used a program to generate the unique word list for the entire book, and the list showed separate listings for capitalized, non-capitalized, singular, and plural instances of the same word. I included these four varieties of the same word in the creation of the index, so as to capture all occurrences of these words. So currently in the index, for one word -- say the word, "book" -- there are four listings: Book, book, Books, books. I'd like to collapse these four listings into one -- "Book" -- and include all the page numbers for the four varieties in a single listing. Does this need to be done by hand after converting the index to a text file? Or is there a better way to do this?

Presumably the "program to generate the unique word list for the entire book" created the list with the separate 'Book, book, Books, books' entries, which you then used as a concordance to generate the Index. Before doing that last part, you really should have concatenated these list entries into one. At this point, you could use Find/Replace to look for all XE fields containing 'book, Books, books' and replace those with just 'Book', thus:
Find = XE book
Replace = XE Book
Find = XE books
Replace = XE Book
After doing that and updating the Index, the 'book', 'Books', & 'books' entries should all appear under 'Book'.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

I think I understood most of what you've guided here. So I used a concordance document for the creation of Index entries, via References|Insert Index>Automark. And that step marked all the words; here by "marking" we mean that Microsoft Word inserts index entries as an XE (Index Entry) field in a field code. Am I correct in understanding that at this point the XE fields have been created and I could search them and do a Find and Replace as you indicated, so that all the listings (Book, Books, book, books) would be seen by MSW as "Book", so that when I then create the index, it shows only Book for all four words. If I've properly understood, then my question is: Where do I find that document which has been created by MSW which holds all the Index entries marked by the automark process? That is the document in which I need to do the Find/Replace, right?

This is the document in which you are generating the Index. Look for the XE fields. (Note, these are Hidden text.)

It is working great-- thank you!
It seems for the find and replace, one has to put quote marks:
Find = XE "book"
Replace = XE "Book"
It didn't work for me without the quote marks. With quote marks, it works perfectly.

Two questions:
1. I had put both the English and Hindi language unique word lists for this file into one MSW document, and created the index in that way. MSW separated the indexes by language, with all the English words of the index organized alphabetically, then followed by all the Hindi words of the index organized alphabetically. There is however one letter of the Hindi alphabet which it placed before all the English words of the index. It isn't really a letter, but a sign. (You may have heard of this, as it is quite a famous sign these days-- "Om" [ॐ]). To put this in its proper place just before the Hindi alphabet, would I need to convert the index into a text file and move it manually, as a cut and paste?

2. I am trying to change the font of the words appearing in the index. I went into "Edit Index -> Modify -> Format -> Font" and there I selected my desired font. Then I clicked ok and it asked me if I wanted to create a new index. I said yes. It created a new index, but with the same font which it had before. It didn't change the font. What do I have to do to get this to work?

Unless its XE field entry differs somehow, I do not understand why a single Hindi word would be listed ahead of all the English words in the Index. As for your second question, the font for the Index entries can be controlled by the font applied to those entries in the XE fields

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

1) Here is what the XE field for this Hindi symbol ॐ looks like: ॐ{ XE "ॐ" }
By looking at this, is there any reason you can see for it to have been placed first in the index?
2) Is managing the font of the entries in the XE fields the only way to manage the font of the index? What about the way I mentioned in the previous post? The option is there in the software to edit and change the font of the index. Shouldn't this work as well?

I believe you actually used 'Insert Index', not 'Edit Index', and yes, that will recreate the Index using the specified font, but modifying the Index 1 Style directly is even simpler. The advantage of modifying the XE entries is that formatting there takes priority over the Index 1 Style.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

1) What I did was to select the index field, right click on it, choose "edit index", in the window that opened I clicked on "index", from there Modify -> Format -> Font. Changed the font, clicked ok to accept the changes. Nothing happened.

2) Anyhow I am perfectly happy to do it by modifying the XE entries as you suggested. I do not see where I have to go to change the font of all the XE entries. If I open styles, I do not see any listing there for "XE entries".

Again, what you see via a right-click is not titled "edit index" but "edit field". You previously said 'I went into "Edit Index"'; you didn't mention right-clicking on the field. It's difficult to follow what you're doing when you don't describe it accurately.
There is no 'XE entries' Style; you modify the content of the actual XE fields. In any event, as I said before, you can also modify the Index 1 Style. That is something we discussed way back in post #2: https://www.msofficeforums.com/word/...tml#post131912. See attached.

Attached Files

Index Document.docx (37.8 KB, 7 views)

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]