OpenOffice.org 2, Firefox, and Thunderbird for Windows All in One [Electronic resources]

1.

Locate Text for the Index

Highlight a word or words and phrases that are to appear in your index. By using

Ctrl , you can select many index entries at once or you can select them one at a time and then add each to the index individually.user-defined index , if you wish.

KEY TERM

User-defined index An index that is secondary to the primary, alphabetical index, such as a figure index or a list of people index.

If you want to add a slightly different variant of the word to the index, use the

Entry box. Here, you can reword the index entry (when you define one at a time). Instead, say, of using

micro , if that's the word you highlighted for the index, you can type microcomputer in the

Entry box. The entry in the index appears as

microcomputer , although it refers to the text

micro .

Use the

1st key box if you want to create a

multilevel index . You'd type the highest-level name in the

1st key box and then Writer adds the selected entry to the next level. if you want a two-tiered entry, type a value in the

2nd key box, and the selected entry will appear below that in the index.

KEY TERM

Multilevel index An index entry that contains a primary term such as f

ruit and two or more secondary entries, offset to the right under the primary term, such as

apple, banana , and

pear .

Once you've defined the proper settings for the new entry, click

Insert to add the entry to the index. The index does not generate when you close the

Insert Index Entry dialog box. You generate the index once you've added all the entries. Click

Close to close the

Insert Index Entry dialog box when you're done with it.

4.

Generate the Index

Once you've defined all the entries, you're ready to make the request to Writer to generate the index. Writer will compile the index and place it at the cursor's current position. Therefore, place the text cursor at the end of the document and then select

Insert, Index and Tables to display the

Insert Index/Table dialog box.

NOTE

You use the same page of the

Insert Index/Table dialog box to generate both the index and the table of contents.

Click the

Type list box to display a list of indexes and tables you can generate. Select

Alphabetical Index for your index. A preview of your index then appears to the left of the dialog box. Click to uncheck the

Protected against manual changes option if you want to make edits to the index later (which you almost always want to do, especially to format it to your liking).

Make additional edits to the index options in the

Options area. For example, you can request that Writer combine index entries by checking the

Combine identical entries box so that Writer doesn't duplicate the same index entry twice if you happen to select two of the same items for the index on the same page before generating the index.

Click

OK to generate your document's index.

5.

Make the Final Index Edits

Once your index appears, you can edit the index to adjust formatting, such as the font and spacing, if you need to so the index matches the format of the rest of the document. If you find that Writer doesn't let you change the index, you didn't uncheck

Protected against manual changes when you generated the index in the

Insert Index/Table dialog box. You can regenerate the index with this option unchecked so you then can make any edits you wish.