How do I remove formatting from index entries?

[Guest]

When I put index entries on heading lines and other formatted paragraphs, the
index entry retains the formatting (bold, italic, size, etc.). No amount of
selecting the entry and trying to clear the formatting works, because it
reappears the next time I generate the index.

How do I get rid of this unwanted formatting? Microsoft has nothing about
this in their support.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

The answer is the same today as it was when I answered your duplicate
question yesterday (or whenever). If you have applied direct font formatting
to the text, this will be picked up by the index (or a TOC). Indexes and
TOCs do not pick up font formatting that is part of the paragraph style (the
default paragraph font). If you are not using paragraph styles, then this is
one more reason to start doing so.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

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[Guest]

Thank you for restating the answer to this question for me. I never asked the
question before, and a search of the existing threads didn't show it.
I do use styles (I'm a FrameMaker user forced to use Word), even for bold
and italic, but in *my* Word 2003, the index markers inserted in Headings and
character tagged formatting DO pick it up (and hold it forever; moving it
once it's formatted doesn't work, I have to delete it).

So you're saying yours doesn't do that? No wonder there is nothing about it
in Word Help. Hmmmm.....thanks again.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I guess it's something in the air; I don't know why it is that some
questions seem to come in flocks. Here's the question I answered yesterday
in this same NG:

I'm frustrated with Word's indexing feature. When I mark an item for an index
entry, Word adopts the font of the entry when placing it into the index,
rather than maintaining the font of the index style. I must manually go
through the index and change the font for these entries. Is there a way
around this?

I think you can see that the issue seems to be the same even if the
statement is not identical. You mention "character tagged formatting." If by
this you mean a character style, be aware that Word treats this the same as
direct font formatting. The assumption is that if you have applied direct
font formatting (italics to a book title, for example), you will want this
formatting carried over to the index entry. I'm not sure I've created an
index in Word 2003, so I can't swear that this behaves the way it did in
previous versions, but I think if it didn't we'd have seen a *lot* more
questions about it (and note that the XE field itself will display the font
formatting of the paragraph it is in, but this formatting should not be
carried over to the index). The only thing I can suggest is to be very sure
that your font formatting *is* coming from the paragraph style (the Reveal
Formatting task pane with "Distinguish style source" checked will be helpful
here).
--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.