Including Section Numbers in an Index

Word allows you to create dynamic indexes for your documents. These indexes can be generated, as needed, to reflect changes in page numbers within the document. The simplest of indexes contain only page numbers for the items being indexed. You may, however, want to create an index that also includes section numbers for entries.

There are two ways you can approach putting section numbers in an index. The easiest way is if the sections are just that—sections of your Word document, separated by section breaks. In this case, you can use compound fields, so your index entries look something like this:

{XE "My Index Entry" \t "{SECTION}:{PAGE}"}

In this case you are using the \t switch to indicate that you want Word to substitute the text following the switch for the actual page number. Normally the \t switch is used for cross-references, but in this instance, you are telling word to substitute the section number (generated by the SECTION field) followed by a colon and the page number (generated by the PAGE field). If you use this XE field to mark an index entry on page 6 of section 2, then the generated index will look like this:

My Index Entry. 2:6

The other method of including section numbers in your index comes in handy if your "sections" do not correspond to actual Word document sections. In this instance you use a different INDEX field to actually generate your index:

{INDEX \s MySection \d ":"}

The \s switch tells Word that you want the page numbers in the index to include the sequence number designated by the term following. In this instance, the entries in the index will include the number associated with the MySection sequence, followed by the character specified by the \d switch (a colon), and the page number. The sequence, of course, is set within the document by using the SEQ field:

{SEQ MySection}

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (9138) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Word in Microsoft 365. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Including Section Numbers in an Index.