EMBEDDED INDEXES AND E-BOOKS
Creating embedded indexes
Some publishers require embedded indexes. Instead of working from the PDF proofs, I receive the book manuscript either as a Word document (before typesetting) or an InDesign file. I use specialised software to insert (embed) index tags into the body of the manuscript at the locations where the indexed concepts occur. The indexing module in Word or InDesign uses these tags to generate the complete index, and when the book is typeset the page numbers in the index are updated automatically to reflect the final pagination of the book.
When I send you an embedded index to review, I will provide additional information explaining how the tags ‘work’ to create the index.
E-books
For e-books, embedded indexes may be ‘activated’ and hyperlinked. This is not something I do myself: I provide the embedded index and leave it to the experts to take it from there.
More information
I am a member of the American Society for Indexing’s Digital Publication Indexing Special Interest Group, and you can find a wealth of information about embedded indexing and e-book indexing on their website.