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Navigation Aids for Long Word Documents (8)

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Creating an Index from a List

Rather than marking index entries throughout your document, you can prepare a list of words or phrases and then tell Word to find them in your document, mark them, and put them into an index automatically.

To create a new index from a list, follow these steps:

1. Create a new document.

2. Insert a two-column table by choosing the 'Table' command from the 'Insert' submenu on the 'Table' menu.

3. Type the word or phrase exactly as it appears (beware of using correct capitalisation) in your document in the left-hand column of the table.

4. Type the index entry as you want it to appear in the index in the right-hand column of the table.

5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 for each index entry.

6. Save the document with a valid filename.

7. Return to the document where you want to create the index.

8. Choose 'Index And Tables' from the 'Insert' menu and click the 'Index' tab.

9. Click the 'AutoMark' button and the 'Open' dialog box will appear.

10. Double-click the file containing the two-column table. Word will then locate and mark all of the matching words or phrases in your document.

11. Choose 'Index And Tables' from the 'Insert' menu again and click 'OK' to create the index.

Notice that the above steps can also be applied to supplement an existing index. However, in step 7, you should return to the document where you want to supplement the index. In addition, in step 11, you will have to click 'Yes' when Word asks if you want to replace the existing index.

Creating Cross References

Cross References (often displayed in italics or parentheses) are bits of text that refer readers to other places in a document. When you insert them with Word, it automatically creates the reference text and includes the page, chapter, or other location reference. Moreover, Word will automatically change location references if you later modify your document, and cross-references can be inserted as hyperlinks that readers can click to jump to the cross-referenced location in the document.

To insert a cross-reference, follow these steps:

1. Move the insertion point to the place where it should appear and type the beginning of the cross-referenced text, such as 'See' or 'See page' followed by a space.

2. Choose 'Cross-Reference' from the 'Insert' menu to display the 'Cross-reference' dialog box.

3. Using the 'Reference type:' list, select the type of item to which you want a cross-reference. For example, if you select 'Heading', you will see a list of the document's headings in the 'For which heading:' list below.

4. Select the specific document heading, bookmark, or other element from the list. This indicates the location in the document to which you want the cross-reference to refer.

5. Using the 'Insert reference to:' list, select the reference information you want to show. For example, you can show a reference to heading text, a page number, or an item number in a list.

6. Select or clear the check box to insert the reference as a hyperlink or to add the word 'above' or 'below' to the reference text, depending on the relative location of the item to which you are referring. (This check box is not available for all reference types.)

7. Click 'Insert' to insert the reference. The Cross-reference dialog box will stay open so you can insert others or click the 'Close' button to close this dialog box.

It is the eighth but the last article for this long series. In summary, I have introduced navigation aids, such as Tables of Contents, Tables of Figures, Tables of Authorities, Indexes and Cross References, to help you read long Word documents.

Next time, I will talk about another useful feature.

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(Email address: 'Daniel_KC_To@police.gov.hk')