You can create indexes for your MS Word technical documents by two methods: 1) Manual and 2) Automatic method (concordance). In this article we will focus on the matching method.
This wholesale method involves telling MS Word which words to search for in the document and which index entries to tag them with.
For example, you can tell MS Word to find all instances of the words “intrusion” and “access” and tag them with the index entry “security”. As a result, the index entry “security” will be followed by the page numbers where the words “intrusion” and “access” appear.
For this method, you need to create a simple “Concordance Table” with only two columns. In the LEFT column, write all the words you need to assign to an index entry. In the RIGHT column, type the index entry to point to the corresponding word in the LEFT column. In effect, you are mapping all the entries in the left column to their equivalents in the right column.
After you finish your “Table of Concordance”, save it. Then select Insert > Reference > Indexes and Tables… from the main menu to display the Indexes and Tables screen.
Click the AutoMark button to display the search box. Browse to your saved concordance file and select and click OK. This will cause MS Word to mark up your document by attaching index tags to each word you have specified in the LEFT column of your table.
Place your cursor where you want your Table of Contents to appear.
Go back to your Index and Tables dialog. Make all the format selections you want and click the OK button to create your index.
CAUTION: Always tag and create a COPY of your original file to generate your Table of Contents, as MS Word creates a lot of code behind the scenes while building the Table of Contents. And worst of all, if you try to change your concordance file or edit your document and then regenerate the index, MS Word doesn’t replace the old indexing tags with the new ones, it just ADDS a new set of tags. Therefore, I recommend that you save multiple copies of your original document file and compile your new index(es) on those separate copies.