Index preparation and processing

Index preparation is a tedious and time‐consuming task. This paper indicates how the indexing process can be automated in a way that is largely independent of a specific typesetting system and independent of the format being used. Fundamental issues related to this process are identified and analysed. Specifically, we develop a framework for placing index commands in the document. In addition, the design of a general‐purpose index processor that transforms a raw index into an alphabetized version is described. The resulting system has proved very useful and effective in producing indexes for several books, technical reports and manuals. A comparison of our system with indexing facilities available from a variety of other document preparation environments is given.