Create an index showing page numbers of any terms in Word

Don't miss how easy it can be to create a word index in Microsoft Word. Using a concordance file you can tag any letter or number strings in a Word document and automatically prepare an index which shows which page numbers on the Word document the strings appear on.

Begin by creating a simple Concordance file, which is just a two column table with the string you want to tag in the left column, and the XE code tag you want to add to the string in the right column. In this case we will tag the strings with the strings themselves because that is the output we want in the index.

In this example, we want to find the pages on which the four words in this table appear . . .

. . . in a different Word document. Note that the concordance file will not be case sensitive. We save the concordance file as a separate Word document. In the document we are preparing an index for, on the References tab in the Index section, click Insert Index.

. . . click on the AutoMark button on the lower right and browse to the concordance file you just created. This will add XE codes to the document which will be the basis of the index.

Select the location where you want your index to appear, and then go back to Insert Index on the References tab and select Insert Index again and then simply click OK.

An index will be generated listing the strings followed by each page number on which they appear.

left margin black squares formatting detail in MS Word

When editing a Word document you may come across small black boxes or squares in the left margin when formatting symbols are displayed. It may not be possible to relocate text which includes these marks to other parts of the document. The 'black box' symbol indicates that the text has been formatted so the lines are kept together.

You can remove this formatting for any one line by clicking on any one of the black boxes. This will bring up the Paragraph dialog box. On the 'Line and Page Breaks' tab, unclick 'Keep lines together'. To remove the setting for several lines, select them all, and on the Home ribbon go into Paragraph and make the same change.

Get rid of XE codes

Index entry XE codes in Word are field codes associated with particular string of text. The Tip of the Night for April 9, 2017, showed how XE codes can be used to automatically add multiple hyperIinks to a Word document. The Tip of the NIght for September 23, 2019 showed how to use a macro to remove XE codes added to a Word document.

You can also run a simple find and replace search to remove all of the XE codes added to Word document. Searching for:

^19 XE

. . . and replacing it with nothing, will erase any XE codes present in a Word document.

Be sure to have formatting symbols displayed, by pressing the ¶ icon on the Home ribbon.