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Question

Turkish Sorting Issue in Generated Index - "Ç" Entries Appear Under "C" Despite Turkish Sort Setting

Forum|Forum|11 months ago
March 27, 2025
4 replies
510 views

Hello Adobe InDesign Community,

I’m facing an issue with the index generation in Adobe InDesign, specifically with Turkish character sorting. I’m hoping someone can help me identify what I might be doing wrong or if this is a known bug.

Problem Description: I’m working on a book project in InDesign, and I need to generate a 3-column hierarchical index with proper Turkish alphabetical sorting. I’ve set the sorting language to Turkish in the Index panel, and the index entries appear correctly sorted in the panel (e.g., "Ç" entries are listed under a separate "Ç" section, as they should be in the Turkish alphabet). However, when I generate the index using the "Generate Index" dialog, the "Ç" section heading disappears, and all entries starting with "Ç" are incorrectly listed under the "C" section, mixed with "C" entries.

Steps I’ve Taken:
1-In the Index panel (Window > Utilities > Index), I opened the hamburger menu and went to "Sort Options."
2-In the "Sort Options" dialog, I changed the "Roman" setting to "Turkish" for the sorting language.
3-After applying this setting, the index entries in the Index panel are sorted correctly: "Ç" entries are grouped under a "Ç" section, separate from "C" entries.

4-However, when I go to Generate Index (from the Index panel menu):

I select "Nested" format, with "Include Index Section Headings" checked.
I generate the index, but the "Ç" section heading is missing in the output.
All "Ç" entries (e.g., "Çay bahçeleri", "Çiftçi, Ahmet") are listed under the "C" section (e.g., mixed with "Cam", "Ceviz"), and the sorting within the "C" section is incorrect (not following Turkish alphabetical order).

How can I solve this problem? (indd 2023)

How to

I

istos22981053eke3Author

Participating Frequently

I think there’s a bug in InDesign. When I prepare an index without thematic levels, meaning just using 'Level 1' entries in a flat structure, it sorts Turkish characters correctly and without any issues. However, when I organize topics with 'Level 1' and 'Level 2,' the sorting gets seriously messed up. I’m currently using the 2023 version, and I don’t know if this has been fixed in later versions, but I hope Adobe is aware of this because it’s a significant problem for me.

Robert at ID-Tasker

Legend

@istos22981053eke3

Interesting... Can you try adding 3rd level - to see which one will be wrong?

And again - can you share your file - privately?

I

istos22981053eke3Author

Participating Frequently

Thank you for your interest,

@1287334at ID-Tasker and @Laubender. Since the project consists of a large amount of content, I prepared it as a book, and as of last midnight, I finalized it. However, the issue wasn’t resolved, so I had to manually intervene in a section of the index (I did this within the INDD file using the 'SortParagraphs.jsx' script).

The interesting part is this: When I opened a blank document for testing, I actually saw that the system worked perfectly fine. I’m attaching a visual related to this. Additionally, there’s another oddity in the document I’m working on: in the index sorting, Turkish characters are mixed up in Level 1 topics, while they are sorted correctly in Level 2 topics.

In this case, there seem to be two possibilities:
1- Perhaps I made a mistake while entering the index entries (I checked twice, but I didn’t see any issues).
2- Maybe there’s a bug in the program, and this issue occurs when working with a "book."

Since the index structure is very long (consisting of approximately 5,000 independent entries), I honestly don’t have the courage to start from scratch. After delivering the current project without issues, I plan to create a simple document and run a few tests to investigate this further.

By the way, I’d like to ask something else, in case you might know:

Is there a way to import index data that came as a Word file into InDesign’s index list in a single step?

Robert at ID-Tasker

Legend

By the way, I’d like to ask something else, in case you might know:

Is there a way to import index data that came as a Word file into InDesign’s index list in a single step?

By @istos22981053eke3

https://creativepro.com/files/kahrel/indesign/lists_indexes.html

L

Laubender

Community Expert

Hi @istos22981053eke3 ,

maybe a paragraph sorter script can help you after the index is done and all edits are done in the document.

For example:

Language-aware paragraph sorter
Peter Kahrel, last update: 16 Nov. 2024

https://creativepro.com/files/kahrel/indesign/sort.html

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Expert )

Robert at ID-Tasker

Legend

Sorting in InDesign works only with English letters - no diacritics.

I

istos22981053eke3Author

Participating Frequently

Thank you for your response! I understand your point about InDesign’s sorting primarily working with English letters and not handling diacritics by default. However, I’d like to share some additional details about my situation that might shed more light on the issue.

In a test document I created, I was able to get the Turkish sorting to work correctly. After setting the "Sort Options" to "Turkish" in the Index panel (Window > Utilities > Index > Sort Options), the generated index showed the "Ç" entries under a separate "Ç" section heading, as expected in the Turkish alphabet. This suggests that InDesign does support Turkish sorting when the correct settings are applied.

However, in my main document, the same settings don’t seem to work. Even though the Index panel shows the "Ç" entries correctly under a "Ç" section, when I generate the index using the "Generate Index" dialog, the "Ç" section heading disappears, and all "Ç" entries (e.g., "Çağrı", "Çay bahçeleri") are listed under the "C" section, mixed with "C" entries (e.g., "Cam", "Ceviz").

I’ve also checked the level definitions (Level 1 and Level 2) in the Index panel. For example, "Çağrı" is defined as a Level 1 entry, and it appears correctly under the "Ç" section in the Index panel. But this structure doesn’t carry over to the generated index in my main document.

Robert at ID-Tasker

Legend

Right, sorry, I've confused it with Bullets and Numbering.

How did you get Turkish on the list?

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