Chapter 22: Creating Effective Indexes

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Overview

If you're creating a long document that covers a lot of ground—a textbook on the principles of modern economics, a procedural manual for a new computer program, or a parts catalog for an auto supply store—it's important for readers to find the subjects they're looking for. Creating a good index is part of making your document accessible for readers, by providing a listing of topics and subtopics and the pages on which they can be found. It's been said that your table of contents might be what helps readers decide whether to read your document in the first place, but the index determines whether or not they'll come back to it. If your index helps readers find what they're looking for quickly, they'll turn to it again and again.

In this chapter, you'll learn how to create indexes for your Word documents. Whether you create entries one by one or use a table to automate index entries, you'll find the process fairly intuitive and fast.

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