How Do I Edit / Reconfigure Index Entries

Thank you John, with those steps I have made some progress, albeit of a reverse nature.

I used those steps to strip almost all the XE tags from my manuscript.

Then I found the first mention of 'Einstein' and used the 'Mark Entry' dialog box to 'Mark All' precisely as I want his entry to appear in the Index ("Einstein, Dr. Albert").

I then updated the Index and Einstein's entry is the only one; 27 pages are listed, with no duplications from pages where his name appears multiple times. So I've got that part right.

Then I discovered that at some point, Index tagging had put tags into my footnotes, and those entries were still showing up in the Index. I had to go through the footnotes (there are nearly 200) and delete them manually.

So now my entire index looks like this:

...and that is much cleaner start than what I had before. So now I take another run at the whole manuscript with a much better idea of what I'm doing.

I have to more questions (at least)

1. How do I 'Insert' the Index AFTER the Endnotes? The endnotes are auto-formatted at the end of the document, but I cannot insert a page break after to create a new page and insert the Index there. I do not want the Index before the endnotes in the final product.
2. How do I even add a title ("INDEX") to the beginning OF the Index? There does not appear to be a way to insert a couple of lines where I can put in that word and center it.

I will now commence to Indexing, Take 2.

Thanks,

--PS

With the hidden text visible, choose Edit>Find>Advanced Find and Replace. In the Find What field, type ^d, then click on Find Next. It will find and highlight each field in your document. If you have any types of fields other than XE fields, you'll want to check each found field to make sure you're not about to delete some other kind (like a TOC).

Word is not able to find the entire field, but in testing, I'm able to find XE and to find "Einstein" inside an XE field.

The /i switch does make the entry italic.

Thank you for replying.

I have just been through one or the entries, and have made some progress.

I have hidden text revealed, I see the XE entries in the manuscript, but am unable to copy/paste them into a Find or Find/Replace window. That would be ideal, but for some reason the 'hidden' text is treated as truly invisible. It does not copy/paste.

So I am having to find the name ("Einstein" for example) one-at-a-time in the document, and then manually paste how I want the Index entry to appear for each occurrence - replacing the different entries I created at first.

I did that on one name and so far so good, except now I see some odd duplication and some page numbers in italics and others not:

Farnsworth, Philo T. (II), 11, 12, 13, 11, 12, 17, 18, 48, 49, 84, 183, 362

- - -

I did notice that a several of the entries for that name did not have the trailing \i before the } - could that be a factor?

At this point I am rather resigned to going through this manually, entry by entry, to clean up the index; I would not have to do that if the Find/Replace function could work with the invisible text between the { }s in the XE entries.

Absent a way to do that, I don't see an alternative. Pray tell I missed something?

Thanks,

--PS

Here is the information on my website about Indices.

Index entries are in XE Fields.

To show Hidden Text, you could press the pillcrow (paragraph mark) in the paragraph group of your home tab.

I will try to write a sample macro for you. You can't simply use Replace because while you can find a field, you can't create or modify one with Replace. You do not want to be changing text outside your XE fields.