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STeveF48's avatar
STeveF48
Copper Contributor
Jun 12, 2020

The index in my Word document has duplicate entries

I'm trying to index a 243 page document. I selected words that I would like to appear in the index, then presses Alt Shift X to create an index entry field, then Mark All to index every occurrence o...
STeveF48's avatar
STeveF48
Copper Contributor
Jun 12, 2020
BTW
I have contacted MS Support, but they couldn't help. Repaired Office 365 twice (local and online), recreated the index too many times to count
hansleroy's avatar
hansleroy
Iron Contributor
Jun 13, 2020

Hi STeveF48 

Strange and frustrating, indeed. 

I find a very old thread about something similar - but no real solution (beyond editing the INDEX field).

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/index-page-duplicates/1524677a-24bc-4304-9641-603d3967e249#:~:text=Word%20ordinarily%20does%20not%20duplicate,list%20the%20entry%20only%20once.

What I'd try is to make hidden characters visible (Ctrl+8)) and then find (Ctrl+F) through all XE entries to see if you see something strange. My first idea is trailing or leading spaces...

Kind regards

Hans

  • STeveF48's avatar
    STeveF48
    Copper Contributor
    Jun 16, 2020

     

    Thanks for trying to help.
    First, all of the entries were created by using "Mark All" when I inserted index marks, so there should not have been any variations.
    Second: I had a problem, as detailed in my other post, with searching for hidden text. It was only on one PC, so On the other one I Searched/replaced all possible variations of XE “Castles:Deal”. I.e. Starting with a space, or ending with one.
    Third, There are about 120 lines where the main entry is Castles and the sub-entry is Deal, that's 12 varieties of each letter in Castles:Deal.
    Fourth: I don't know how to explain the sorting of the entries, I've copied them all into a plain text file.
     
    Some entries are correct, which makes this so much weirder.
    Thanks again
    Steve
    • katherine_backler's avatar
      katherine_backler
      Copper Contributor
      Oct 01, 2024
      Hello. This problem is happening to me too. The microsoft support agent could not fix it. Was there a fix in the end? Thank you!
      • EleanorG's avatar
        EleanorG
        Copper Contributor
        Nov 07, 2025

        In case anyone comes to this thread, I've also just had this issue, and it was caused by an extra space at the start between the punctuation and the term for one indexed entry, and it causes havoc for all entries thereafter. 

        So if it's the main term that is duplicating, you can search for: quotation marks-space-term (e.g. " Castles ), or if it's a subheading that's duplicating, then you can search for: colon-space-term (e.g. : Deal ), and when you get rid of the space and refresh your index, it'll go back to normal - thank goodness! 

        (Spaces at the end of the term before the punctuation also cause duplicate entries, but only for that individual instance - they don't seem to have the same knock on effect that spaces at the start do.)

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