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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...
hansleroy's avatar
hansleroy
Iron Contributor

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!
    • STeveF48's avatar
      STeveF48
      Copper Contributor
      Oct 02, 2024

      katherine_backler 

      It’s been a while since I posted my question. I think that I manually edited the document and made sure that each word/phrase in the index was absolutely identical.

      If memory serves, there were hidden characters; spaces; tabs. Capitalisation also played a part “Index” is not the same as “index” and there isn’t (as far as I know) a way to tell word to ignore the difference, however you can fool Word by replacing words (ignoring case) with the same word plus the index entry code. Show all characters including hidden text will reveal these. I will post more when I am working on my PC.

       

      • Charles_Kenyon's avatar
        Charles_Kenyon
        Bronze Contributor
        Oct 03, 2024

         Mark All is a very crude tool and likely to give you a barely useful index, if at all useful. IMO, there is really no good substitute for manually marking. It is almost never that the reader really wants to be able to find all instances of a term.

         

        "But the end result is that you have every term indexed at EVERY place it occurs. Most of the mentions of a term in a book are simply passing references: what the reader wants to see in the index is only one page number; the one that contains the main topic for the term. If you send them on a wild goose chase to 20 other places first, they will think most unkindly of you." John McGhie How Do I Create an Index in Word?

        STeveF48

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