From the course: InDesign Secrets

271 Add images to an index - InDesign Tutorial

From the course: InDesign Secrets

271 Add images to an index

- [Instructor] I wanna show you a really neat tip about indexes. Baaaaa, indexes! Don't freak out and run away, or close this video window. It's actually kinda neat. Let's say that you wanna create an index using InDesign's Indexing feature, which hasn't been improved upon for many centuries, but still it does the job. And the idea, I have the Index panel right here. The idea is that you add references to the index, and then have the index panel generate the index for you down here. By the way, if you didn't happen to have the Index panel over here in your doc, you'll find it under Type & Tables, there's Index. So for example, let me zoom in here. Let's say that I wanna include a reference to Windsor Castle. So I'll click Add Reference, and it's called Windsor Castle. I want it to refer to the page where this instance is, so I'll leave that at the default and click Okay. And then if I come down here to the W's, and I troll open the triangle, you can see there's Windsor Castle on page seven. And you go through your document adding index features, and then you go to the last page, assumably in your document, and you generate the index with this little guy right here. And I'll just accept the defaults and place it, and there you can see our friend Windsor Castle, that we added along with the other ones in this document okay? Now, the tip is this. What if you want to index things that aren't text? Say for example, these pictures. What if I want to include in the index, the name of the artwork, and the page that it appears on? Or you can think of many other things that you might want to include in an index, in a document that you're working on that don't happen to be text. So I went to the Help file for Adobe InDesign, and I looked at how to create an index, and this is a long page. Lots and lots of instructions, but nothing having to do with how to index things that aren't text. So the tip is this. Next to your object, create a text frame. And we are going to create what's called an Invisible Index Entry. I'm going to tuck it right next to this image, and I'm going to group it, so I'm Shift-clicking both of these frames, going to the Object menu, Group, there it is, and now it's moving around with it. Then inside that text frame, click an Insertion Point with your Type tool, and Add an Index Entry here, so I'm just going to click right here, and I actually want a category in my index called Paintings. And underneath that, I want a list of all the paintings in this document, along with the page number that they appear on. You don't have to do that, but I like it. So I'm gonna say Paintings and I don't know the name of this painting, so I'll just call it Young Girl, okay? And I'll click Okay. And if I look in the P, there is Paintings, Young Girl, and the page that she's on. Let's do this to a couple other squares, now you can see that I already put a little text frame here next to this one, so I'll add an entry, and I'll call it Paintings, because I want it to appear in the same category Boy with Lamb. And let's do one more, here's one. Add the entry. Paintings, Young, and maybe she's old, I don't know, Lady, I'll just say Young Lady. Let's check to see what I have here already, Young Girl, Young Lady, perfect. And by the way, if you have hidden characters showing, that's the command under Type down here, Hide Hidden Characters, because it's showing right now, and I zoom in a bit, you can see that there is a little entry, and if I go to Edit, Story Editor, Edit in Story Editor, there is my little icon, it's look like a guy doing semaphore with flags, indicating this is an index entry. But there's no text associated with it. It's an invisible index entry. Now let's go down to our Index, Select it, Delete it, and let's Regenerate it. And I'm gonna click right over here, Generate Index. Accept the defaults, and click, and there it is. Our invisible index entries, helping the reader locate where all of the paintings are in this book. Isn't that a great tip? I love it, even though I don't usually do indexes, this almost makes me wanna do one.

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