Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. If you are using an earlier version (Word 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Word, click here: Cross-Referencing Index Entries.

Cross-Referencing Index Entries

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated March 21, 2020)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021

Creating index entries in a Word document is easy, as you learn in other WordTips. It is not uncommon to cross-reference items in an index, and such cross-references require a change in how you create the index entries. For instance, instead of page numbers after an entry, you might have the text See Johnson, Abigail. To insert a cross-reference in an index entry, follow these steps:

Select the text you wish to appear as the main index entry. This is the text under which the cross reference will appear.
Press Alt+Shift+X. Word displays the Mark Index Entry dialog box. Notice that the Main Entry text box is already filled in with the text you specified in step 1. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. The Mark Index Entry dialog box.

Select the Cross-reference radio button.
In the text box to the right of the Cross-reference radio button, enter the cross reference, as you want it to appear.
Click on Mark.
Click on Close to dismiss the Mark Index Entry dialog box.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (12816) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Cross-Referencing Index Entries.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...

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What is four less than 7?

2020-10-24 14:30:37

Liliana Hartwig

Hello, I would like to create a list of acronyms below the TOC by marking the text of my document and then inserting this as an "index"? below the TOC; however, I don't want to show in the body of my document what was marked, as this will be disruptive to the reader, nor I want this Index to have page numbers or be formatted in a column.

Don't want to show this in the body of my document: { XE "Longhole (LH)" \i }

Would like the list to look as follows (Full name followed by a dot leader TAB then the acronym):

American wire gauge............................. AWG
Amperes................................................. A
Canadian dollars................................... C$
Centimetre............................................ cm
Cubic feet per minute........................... cfm

What would be the best way of doing this?

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