HOW TO MAKE AN INDEX IN WORD STEP BY STEP? - DOUBTS - 2025

Make an index in word, serves to list the topics that are covered in the document you make, as well as the pages where each topic is located. In Word, there are very simple functions to create the index automatically through a "Table of contents" or an "index".

If you want to have order in the document, it is vitally important to have an index, which will allow both you and the readers to quickly and easily track specific points.

Word is a very powerful tool as a text editor, so much so, that it has included the creation of automatic indexes within its functions, and although you can do it manually, why do it if Word makes your life easier with these functions?

The ideal is to take full advantage of all the functions that Word has, to save time and effort when preparing a document.

Word calls a "Table of Contents" what is known in many parts of the world as an "index," and a "index" what is often referred to as an alphabetical index.

Although both are similar and are very useful when working with long documents, we recommend that if you want to keep an order of the pages according to the order of the titles you have created, use the "Table of Contents" function.

On the other hand, if you want to have the order of your index in alphabetical order, you must use the "Insert index" function.

Step by step to make an index in Word with the function "Table of contents".

To make an index step by step with the "table of contents" function, the sequence of pages is taken into account for the creation of the index in Word.

We invite you to follow these steps if that is what you want to do:

1.- You must open the document to which you want to create the index.

2.- The titles and subtitles that you have in the document must be placed with styles through the Styles section in the home tab.

You must select the words of each title of the topic that you consider should appear in the index, and give it styles that are titles (Those that say at the bottom "Title", "Title 1", "Title 2" or "Title 3 ”).

3.- Once you finish step 2, place the writing cursor where you want to place the index. In general, it is customary to make the index at the end of the document or just after the Cover or dedication.

4.- Click on the "References" tab at the top of the menu and locate the "Table of Contents" button. This button is on the left side of the menu.

5.- Click on "Table of contents" and choose "Automatic table 1" or "Automatic table 2". What varies in each table is that one will tell you "Contents" and the other will tell you "Table of contents."

6.- Done! The index will have been created automatically and ordered according to the sequence of pages in your document.

In case you make modifications to the document, you must click on the index you have created and press "Update table".

Doing so will open a window where you must choose if you want to update the number of pages or if you want to update the entire table in case you have added more titles.

Once you choose the option of your preference, press accept and your table will have been updated.

Step by step to make an index with the function "Insert index"

Use the "insert index" function to make an index, forgive redundancy, is when you want to take into account the alphabetical order of the index titles and not the sequence of the pages in which it appears. For this we invite you to follow the steps below:

1.- With the Word document open to which you want to index, locate the "References" tab and click on it.

2.- Locate the button "Mark entry" and click on it. The button is located on the right side of the menu that you just opened.

3.- When you do, the following window will open:

4.- Here you must place the title you want to appear in the content of the index.

To do this, you must go to each document title and select it manually, then click on the "Entry" text box.

Doing so will copy what you just selected to the input text box.

5.- You must choose in "options" if the title you are placing is:

- A cross-reference (that is, link that subject of the document with another section where it is referred to).

- Current page, in case you want it to appear from where that topic starts.

- Interval of pages, for when you want to place from where the topic begins to where it ends.

6.- Once this is selected, you must choose the "Format of the page numbers", checking if it is bold and / or italic.

7.- When you have all the filling for that title, press "Mark"

Note: Some symbols will be placed in the document, do not worry about it, what you have done has not been damaged, they are simple Word marks to be able to locate.

If the marks bother you, after you mark all the entries (remember that you must do it manually) go to File -> Options -> Show and there uncheck "Show format marks" and then press "OK".

8.- Once you have marked all the entries that you want to appear in the index, press "Insert index" (it is next to "Mark Entry").

9.- Finally, a window will open where you can customize the appearance of the index that you have created, once you finish customizing, press "OK".

10.- Ready! You have created an alphabetized index automatically in Word.

Note: Below “insert index” there is a button that says “Update index”. You must click on this if you want to update any modification of the document that affects the pages in the index

References

1. Microsoft Team (no date). Create a table of contents (Applies to Word for Office 365, Word 2016, Word 2013, Word 2010, Word 2007). Accessed from: support.office.com in July 2018.
2. Microsoft Team (no date). Index creation and update (Applies to Word for Office 365, Word 2016, Word 2013, Word 2010, Word 2007). Accessed from: support.office.com in July 2018
3. MSN (No date). How to create an index in Word like an expert ?. Accessed from: msn.com in July 2018
4. Microsoft Team (last update: January, 2014). How to number chapters, appendices, and pages in documents that contain Word titles with chapters and appendices. Retrieved from: support.microsoft.com
5. Cubides Joya, Zulay (2018). how to create table of contents in word document. Consulted of: aprendendiendo.wikispaces.com in July 2018
6. WikiBooks (last edition: July 2018). LaTeX / Indexing. Retrieved from: en.wikibooks.org.