Would like to make an index of every word in a document.

[jbengal]

I'm taking an open-book law school exam in 2 weeks and would like to 'index' my line-numbered 40 page outline for easy reference on test day. For example, because no electronic documents are allowed, I want to walk into the test with two paper documents...
1) a 40 page outline and
2) an alphabetized 5-10 page index of every word in my outline.
If I need to quickly find the case 'Gagliardi v. Trifoods International' in my paper outline, for instance, I'd like to look at my alphabetized index for the word 'Gagliardi' and find every line (all of which are numbered sequentially in my outline) that has an instance of the word 'Gagliardi.' In my 9th grade Visual Basic class I think I could have programmed this in about an hour. Unfortunately, I no longer have the time or expertise. Any help from anyone? Thanks for your time.

Please feel free to email any thoughts to jbengal at gmail dot com.

 

[mintjulep]

I would approach the problem along these lines:

Make a copy of your document. Find all spaces and replace them with carriage returns. Copy that result into Excel, use sorts and filters or MSquery whittle it down to a list of unique words. Copy that list into an adjacent column. Copy the two columns back into word, and if necessary convert the result to a two-column table.

You have just created a concordance file consisting of every word in your document.

From there read word's help on how to create an index using a concordance file.

 

[fumei]

Using a concordance file is very helpful. However, you need to clarify the difference between your "every word", and mintjulep's "unique words".

In your example of 'Gagliardi v. Trifoods International', are you expecting Gagliardi, Trifoods, and International to have separate entries? You can do that, plus you could do an entry for the whole thing (Gagliardi v. Trifoods International).

You do need to make a concordance (but again they ARE helpful). You could select Gagliardi, and:

1. Insert > Reference > Index and Tables > Index tab
2. Select Mark Entry (displays Mark Index Entry dialog)
3. Select Mark All

ALL instances of Gagliardi will be indexed.

To insert the actual Index itself, go to where you want it and:

1. Insert > Reference > Index and Tables > Index tab
2. Select OK

Voila. True, you need to select the text you want to index.

So what does "every word" really mean?

Note that if you do make a concordance, you do need to have it in a two column table. That is the format of a concordance file.

faq219-2884

Gerry
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