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Adding Indexing Markup
To create an index, insert indexing elements throughout the document. The content you add to the indexing elements becomes the contents of the index. The textual content you enter in indexterm elements appears in color on screen, so it is easily distinguished from the document content.
An indexterm element must always contain a primary element. It can also contain secondary and tertiary elements. The last of these three elements contained in indexterm can be followed by a single see element or one or more seealso elements.
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Because an indexterm element is suppressed during output, Arbortext Editor associates it with the next visible element that has an ID (such as a paragraph or a section head). In PDF or HTML output, if the associated element includes a forced page break, the index entry linked to the suppressed indexterm will jump to the page on which the associated element is located, rather than the page on which the indexterm element is located.
To avoid this, place the indexterm element before the closest visible element that does not include a forced page break.
primary element — Required. The text of this element appears as the main index term. Following is the tagging structure for a primary entry:
<indexterm><primary>main index entry</primary></indexterm>
In the final index, this information could appear in this format:
main index entry, page number
secondary element — Optional. The text of a secondary term appears as a subentry under the main index entry. Following is the tagging structure for a secondary entry:
<indexterm><primary>main index entry</primary>
<secondary>secondary index entry</secondary></indexterm>
In the final index, this information could appear in this format:
main index entry
secondary index entry, page number
tertiary element — Optional. Must be preceded by a secondary element. The text of a tertiary element appears as a second-level subentry. Following is the tagging structure for a tertiary entry:
<indexterm><primary>main index entry</primary>
<secondary>secondary index entry</secondary>
<tertiary>tertiary index entry</tertiary></indexterm>
In the final index, this information could appear in this format:
main index entry
secondary index entry
tertiary index entry, page number
See reference — Directs the user from an index entry containing no information to an index entry where references to the main document are made. See references can be made from the lowest-level element present in an indexterm element only. Following is the tagging structure for a see reference:
<indexterm><primary>main index entry</primary>
<see>alternate main index entry</see></indexterm>
In the final index, this information could appear in this format:
main index entry, see alternate main index entry
See also reference — Directs the user from an index entry to another entry that may contain additional information. Following is the tagging structure for a see also reference:
<indexterm><primary>main index entry</primary>
<seealso>additional main index entry</seealso></indexterm>
In the final index, this information could appear in this format:
main index entry, page number
see also additional main index entry