Indexes in PTC Arbortext Layout Developer are used for creating sorted (and sometimes unsorted) lists of all types, including standard indexes.

The index feature has two parts:

PTC Arbortext Layout Developer can allow multiple indexes to be created simultaneously during a formatting pass. This is controlled by associating an index reference and an index control stream with one or more index groups. Indexes can then be output once the content has been collated and sorted.

An index entry comes from one or more index references. PTC Arbortext Layout Developer performs all the necessary collation and sorting processes to merge index entries. It is possible to nest up to five levels of entries.

PTC Arbortext Layout Developer collects index entries during formatting, rather than as a pre- formatting process. A formatting pass must be completed before an index can be displayed. For this reason, it is preferable to display indexes after the content from which the terms are gathered. If an index must be displayed before the document content, multiple formatting passes must be completed to ensure the page numbers in the index are accurate.

The output from the index process is a new text stream, which must subsequently be formatted. The template controls the nature and behavior of the index output stream.