RE: Index Word

["Geoff Lane" <geoff -at- gjctech -dot- co -dot- uk>]

Aoidìn Scully writes:
>
> I always thought that the Index tool in Word 97 was just particularily
> gnarly - when I select a word and click the Mark button, the text
> doesn't appear in the little box. This makes it hard to mark
> sub-entries, for example.
>
> It's now been suggested to me that maybe Word is not at
> fault. We use a true type font in our manuals that was created specially
> for us, and the suggestion is that maybe the Index marker cannot 'see'
> this font, and that that is why the words don't appear.
---

The text boxes in the Word Indexing dialog box use the same leading as the
Normal style.  This means that, if you set the paragraph to have (say) 12pt
space before the paragraph, the text will not appear within these text
boxes.  FWIW, I tore my hair out before an article in the Microsoft KB made
me wise to this 'feature'.  Thus, I suggest that you check the paragraph
formatting for your Normal style to see if leading is the issue in your
case.

There is a work around -- create another style (mine is called BodyText)
that is based on the Normal style but has the required leading and then set
the leading for the Normal style back to 0.  Unfortunately, you also need to
modify any dependent styles so that they refer to the new style (rather than
Normal); oh! and you need to apply the new style within the document!

HTH,

Geoff Lane
Cornwall, UK
geoff -at- gjctech -dot- co -dot- uk