CERN Accelerating science

• Directory

This website is no longer maintained. Its content may be obsolete. Please visit http://home.cern/ for current CERN information.

CERN -> IPT Group -> FrameMaker at CERN
	Guide for FrameMaker User Guide Templates

---

Importance of the index

The index is the user's most important key for finding information in any document that is very likely to be read in a random sccess fashion. This category of documents definately includes user guides and reference manuals.

One of the most common complaints about technical documents is the lack of an index, or a poorly designed index [1] . A good index adds value to any book:

• Users can find specific information efficiently.
• Users decide whether a manual is going to be useful or not depending on what they find, or do not find, in the index.
• Some users will outrightly refuse to use a manual unless it contains an index.

Building the index

The job of the indexer is to make sure that all relevant statements in a manual are recorded in the index in such a way that the user can find them easily. Important issues are conciseness, extent of indexing (as many as 10 per page), appropriate use of logical headings and see or see also cross-references.

To add index entries to your FrameMaker document you insert index markers in the text throughout the document. The markers are then automatically compiled to build the index file which therefore should never be edited by hand. Index markers have a specific syntax, the basic building blocks of which are shown in Table 2.1 .

 

Table 2.1   Basic building blocks for index entries. For complete information and examples of index entries consult the FrameMaker documentation.

Building block	Effect
: (colon)	Separates levels in an entry
; (semicolon)	Separates entries in a marker
<$nopage>	Suppresses the page number in the entry
	Changes character format in the entry. To change back to default you would need insert .

Additional tools exist to facilate the creation and management of index markers in a FrameMaker book. One such tool is IXgen from Frank Stearns Associates [5] . Please ask us about IXgen's availability at CERN.