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Is it possible to intentionally leave out certain pages/passages of text from being indexed?

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
March 9, 2023
4 replies
1213 views

Looking to leave out (or prevent) certain passages of text from being indexed. I haven't started the project yet, so have flexibility to set it up as needed. It is a book.

How to

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Correct answer Randy Hagan

Yes, it is possible to only include certain documents into an index. Page ranges, no.

Create a second book file with the documents you want to index. Exclude the ones you don't. Be sure not to repaginate/synchronize the second book or apply any page numbering options. You want the index to recognize the pages as they would be in the full book file.
Run your index, and get the text file you want for your separate index document.
Put it in a unique InDesign document and then make index document the last document in your full book file.

This should get you what you need. If not, come back here and sound the alarm. there are lots of sharp folks around here who may be able to help.

Good luck,

Randy

Randy Hagan

Correct answer

Community Expert

Yes, it is possible to only include certain documents into an index. Page ranges, no.

Create a second book file with the documents you want to index. Exclude the ones you don't. Be sure not to repaginate/synchronize the second book or apply any page numbering options. You want the index to recognize the pages as they would be in the full book file.
Run your index, and get the text file you want for your separate index document.
Put it in a unique InDesign document and then make index document the last document in your full book file.

This should get you what you need. If not, come back here and sound the alarm. there are lots of sharp folks around here who may be able to help.

Good luck,

Randy

~

~BarbaraTAuthor

Inspiring

This sounds great. Will set up the sections to achive this end. Thanks a bunch!

Barb Binder

Community Expert

Hi Barbara:

A lot of people confuse "table of contents" with "index".

A table of contents (a chronological list of headings added to the front of a book) is generated by collecting the content that is using a specific paragraph style or styles. If you don't want to include it, use different style names in for the sections you wish to exclude. If you did in fact mean an index (an alphabetical list of topics added to the back of a book), InDesign collects that information based on the index markers you add. Just don't add markers in that section.

~Barb

~Barb at Rocky Mountain Training

~

~BarbaraTAuthor

Inspiring

Thanks for all the replies! By trying to keep my question simple, I think it became confusing (;

Is an Index. It's been a while since I created one using InDesign's features (and not a script), but I did re-read Adobe's documentation today and thought the Index would automatically include the whole book — which is highly desired!

The passages not to be indexed are translations interspersed throught the book and are likely 1/3+ of the contents of the book. I might be able to make separate book documents for those sections. The book itself will be approx. 500 pages.

Wondering if it is possible to only include (or exclude) specified book documents or page ranges for Index? Or maybe index them individually and combine them?

Trying to make it easier for client and myself without too many points where errors could be introduced.

Randy Hagan

Community Expert

Please excuse me if this sounds simplistic, but it's as easy as not making any index markers in the areas you don't want indexed. That means staying away from the Add All button in the New Page Reference dialog box and doing each index reference by hand in the areas you want to have indexed. This is the absolute way to ensure that you only have index entries where you want them.

But that Add All button is so convenient. When you use it to index your book, it takes whatever index entry you've made, can search every open InDesign file on your system and make an index entry everywhere that highlighted entry exists in your document. So if you want to make an index entry everywhere in you book that "Albert Einstein" is mentioned, you don't have to be an Einstein and search the entire InDesign book because the program can do that and index them all for you.

If you're fortunate that the areas you want to exclude are separate, discrete InDesign documents compiled for your InDesign book, the fix is simple: only open the InDesign documents you want to index, then compile the right documents using the Generate Index... flyaway menu command found in your Index panel.

If you can't segment the areas you don't want to index, and want to use that Add All button anyway, you'll have to go through your text you don't want indexed using InDesign's Story Editor functions (Edit>Edit in Story Editor... menu command or use the keyboard shortcut Cmd+7 or Ctrl+7, for Mac and Windows-based systems, respectively) and manually delete those index entries as shown in the illustration below.

So it's not child's play, but it's entirely possible to exclude index entries, just as it is to create them.

Hope this helps,

Randy

James Gifford—NitroPress

Legend

Ah, yes, the question makes sense in light of 'add all.'

I always forget that feature because keyword tagging =/= indexing, to me. 🙂

James Gifford—NitroPress

Legend

Indexing is not automatic (in InDesign, at least, nor in Word... I suppose there might be some app out there that automatically indexes content). If you don't want something in the index, don't tag it during the indexing process.

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