Frequently Asked Question List for TeX
Formatting
Multiple indexes
LaTeX’s standard indexing capabilities (those provided by the
makeidx package) only provide for one index in your
document; even quite modest documents can be improved by indexes for
separate topics.
The multind package provides simple and straightforward
multiple indexing. You tag each \makeindex, \index and
\printindex command with a file name, and indexing commands are
written to (or read from) the name with the appropriate (idx or
ind) extension appended. The \printindex command is modified
from an old version of the LaTeX 2.09 standard so that it doesn’t
create its own chapter or section heading; you therefore decide what
names (or sectioning level, even) to use for the indexes, and
\indexname is completely ignored.
To create a “general” and an “authors” index, one might write:
\usepackage{multind}
\makeindex{general}
\makeindex{authors}
...
\index{authors}{Eccentric Professor}
...
\index{general}{FAQs}
...
\printindex{general}{General index}
\printindex{authors}{Author index}
To complete the job, run LaTeX on your file enough times that labels, etc., are stable, and then execute the commands
makeindex general
makeindex authors
before running LaTeX again. Note that the names of the index files to process are not necessarily related to the name of the LaTeX file you’re processing, at all. (There’s no documentation that comes with the package: what you see above is as good as you will get…)
The multind package doesn’t work with the
AMSLaTeX classes, but the AMS provide a
substitute, the amsmidx package. You use the
amsmidx package pretty much the same as you would
multind, but if things aren’t clear, there is
documentation (unlike multind).
The index package provides a comprehensive set of indexing
facilities, including a \newindex command that allows the
definition of new styles of index. \newindex takes a “tag” (for
use in indexing commands), replacements for the idx and
ind file extensions, and a title for the index when it’s
finally printed; it can also change the item that’s being indexed
against (for example, one might have an index of artists referenced by
the figure number where their work is shown).
Using index, to create an author index together with a
“normal” index, one would start with preamble commands:
\usepackage{index}
\makeindex
\newindex{aut}{adx}{and}{Name Index}
which load the package, define a “main” (original-style) index, and then define an author index. Then, in the body of the document, we might find commands like:
\index[aut]{Another Idiot}
...
\index{FAQs}
Which place an entry in the author index, and then one in the main index. At the end of the document, we have two commands:
\printindex
\printindex[aut]
Which will print the main index and then the author index. Supposing
this lot to be in myfile.tex, after enough runs through
LaTeX that labels are stable, execute the following commands
(Unix-style shell commands shown here, but the principle is the same
whatever system you’re using):
makeindex myfile
makeindex myfile.adx -o myfile.and
and rerun LaTeX. The makeindex commands process
myfile.idx to myfile.ind (the default action), and then
myfile.adx to myfile.and, the two files needed as input
by the two \printindex commands in myfile.tex.
The splitidx package can operate in the same way as the
others: load the package with the split option, and
declare each index with a \newindex command:
\newindex[<index name>]{<shortcut>}
and splitidx will generate a file
\jobname.<shortcut> to receive index entries
generated by commands like \sindex[<shortcut>]{<item>}.
As with the other packages, this method is limited by TeX’s total
number of output files. However, splitindex also comes with
a small executable splitindex (available for a variety of
operating systems); if you use this auxiliary program (and don’t use
split), there’s no limit to the number of indexes. Apart
from this trick, splitidx supports the same sorts of things
as does index. An example of use appears in
the documentation.
The imakeidx package can do a wide range of things (in particular,
it can run an index-builder — via
\write18 commands — so as to simplify
business of making the final copy of a document). The package can
also make multiple indexes; it can do the job in the conventional
(multind) way, or by using the external
splitindex script provided with the splitindex
package. (This arrangement allows efficient operation with small
numbers of indexes, while retaining the flexibility of permitting
large numbers of indexes without hitting the restriction of numbers of
active output streams.)
The memoir class has its own multiple-index functionality (as
well as its own index layout options, which other packages delegate to
the index style used by makeindex).