Format text in an index entry

Know how to format text in an index entry in FrameMaker.

You can change the character style of specified text or of the page number in an entry. For example, you may want a book title to appear in italics, or you may want a particular page number to appear in bold. The character style must be stored in the Character Catalog of the index.

Figure 1. Character formatting

Formattingtextin an index entry in FrameMaker

Create an index entry. To format part of the entry with a character style, do one of the following:

Tip: If you’re using a special character style for many—but not all—page numbers in an index (for example, to use bold for principal entries), you may want to create a custom marker type with that formatting.

To format specific text in an entry, type the character style between angle brackets ( < and > ) before the text and type <Default Para Font> after it. For example, to create the entry “Tidal Waves See Tsunami,” you might enter this marker text: Tidal Waves <Emphasis>See <Default Para Font> Tsunami.

Character styles affect only the entry they precede. For example, <bold>fruit:strawberry would generate a two-line entry that shows “fruit” as bold and “strawberry” without bold. To format both entries in bold, enter <bold>fruit:<bold>strawberry.
To format only the page number, type the character style between angle brackets at the end of the marker text. For example, to create the entry “Erosion 24,” you might enter this marker text: Erosion<Bold>.