Choosing Indexing Software

Several indexing programs are available to help indexers produce indexes to different kinds of publications. The American Society of Indexers provides a list of vendors and contact information.

Beyond knowing who provides software for indexing, you need to know how to choose among the different programs, which differ widely in price and capabilities. A good indexing program will increase your productivity tremendously and will rapidly repay its cost; a poor one will be of little more use than a word-processor. A serious indexer therefore should compare the capabilities of different packages before purchase. In what follows we identify some issues worth exploring.

Key Features of Programs

A good indexing program will automatically and invisibly accomplish many of the basic tasks of indexing:

• It will place entries in the correct place in the index as you make them, and will do this using rules that you can specify (for example, letter-by-letter or word-by-word alphabetizing, or by order of page reference).
• It will allow you to use different type styles and fonts freely in entries.
• It will keep the content of entries separate from the format of entries, so that you can change the arrangement of entries at will (for example, from run-in style to indented style).
• It will provide a wide variety of layout options, to meet different publishers' requirements.
• It will be able to find any entry instantly (or tell you instantly that an entry you are seeking does not exist).
• It will allow you to search for and replace any text in entries, or attributes such as fonts and text styles.
• It will provide pattern searching and Boolean searching among entries.
• It will provide you with ways to avoid repetitive typing of similar entries.
• It will allow you to isolate and work on groups of entries (e.g., for a particular chapter, or containing specified text).
• It will allow you to work with locators in any form (simple page references or complex volume or database references).
• It will include tools for checking the accuracy of cross-references, for checking spelling, and for adjusting page-references (as when page numbers change in the work being indexed).
• It will import index entries prepared by other programs or on other platforms.
• It will be able to combine and merge entries from several indexes, and will be able to break a single index into part-indexes.
• It will allow you to work on multiple indexes concurrently, so that, for example, you can prepare subject and author indexes together as you progress through a work.
• It will automatically produce files from which indexes can be typeset.
• It will be able to produce camera-ready copy.

How to Evaluate Programs

Most indexing programs provide some of the capabilities enumerated above (CINDEX for Windows and CINDEX for Macintosh provide all of them), so a choice among programs might depend less on features than on efficiency and ease of use. Because a good program removes most of the repetitive work of indexing, a large fraction of the indexer's time is spent forming and editing entries. In choosing a program you should therefore pay particular attention to how easy it is to make, find and modify entries, and check their correctness and consistency. In exploring the capabilities of a program, ask questions like the following:

• How seldom will your hands have to leave the keyboard (when must you use the mouse)?
• Can you add new entries while you are editing existing ones?
• How quickly can you establish if an entry already exists under a particular heading?
• How easily can you gather together all entries that refer to a particular concept?
• How easily can you duplicate entries, or parts of entries?
• How easily can you double-post a set of entries?
• Can you review just the entries you have made in your current session, or on a particular day?
• How easily can you work with temporary locators or pagination? How easily can you make corrections for changes in locators or pagination?

And, especially if you are likely to work with large indexes, ask vendors about the performance of their software. How speedily can it find an entry in a large index, or re-sort the index if you change the alphabetizing rules?

Documentation and Customer Service

Your indexing software should not only work well, but should be easy to understand and use. If you have trouble using it you should be able to get help easily.

• Can you evaluate the software before you purchase it?
• Does the software come with clearly-written, printed documentation?
• Does it have on-screen, context-sensitive help?
• Can you get customer support by phone and by email?
• Can you speak to someone when you need to?
• Is support free, and if so, for how long after purchase are you eligible for it?