Why is the Index function not grouping results?

[Brian]

I'm using a rather complicated index and all of the sudden, it has stopped
grouping one of my entries. Instead of listing "Apples and Oranges......1,
3, 55, 767" it instead lists "Apples and Oranges......1" "Apples and
Oranges..... 3" "Apples and Oranges......55" "Apples and Oranges....767."

So instead of a neat, concise index, I have, for this one entry, a repeat
listing several times. I tried cutting all the XE Index text out and pasting
them back in from one source (in case there was some subtle different, like
if I had misspelled it many times and somehow was totally blind to it) but no
luck. I've tried updating the field as well. Next I'll try deleting them
all, then remarking them with the Index function.

Any ideas on why it is doing this all of the sudden? It worked normally for
months.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

All I can say is that I experienced a similar effect with an index some
years back (in Word 97 IIRC). The book was a history and genealogy of the
Link family, and it was especially perverse that the index decided to stop
grouping Links (and I wondered if the name itself was part of the issue).
With the advice of MVP John McGhie, I tried *everything* (as you have) with
no result. It's possible there was some corruption in the document; I don't
know (if you have Word 2003, you might see if Open and Repair helps at all).
In the end I just threw in the towel and waited till editing was complete,
then unlinked the index and tweaked it manually (which helped with some
other formatting issues as well). Good luck!

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi Suzanne / Brian

This has happened to me, more than once. Always when working with templates
supplied by a particular publisher. Sometimes, it turned out to be a slightly
different typing (extra spaces in the XE field that you don't see in the
index, capitalization). Other times I guess it can only have been some kind of
damage in the document. Once or twice, copy/paste without the last index mark
and recreating the index helped.

All I can say is that I experienced a similar effect with an index some
years back (in Word 97 IIRC). The book was a history and genealogy of the
Link family, and it was especially perverse that the index decided to stop
grouping Links (and I wondered if the name itself was part of the issue).
With the advice of MVP John McGhie, I tried *everything* (as you have) with
no result. It's possible there was some corruption in the document; I don't
know (if you have Word 2003, you might see if Open and Repair helps at all).
In the end I just threw in the towel and waited till editing was complete,
then unlinked the index and tweaked it manually (which helped with some
other formatting issues as well). Good luck!

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 17 2005)
http://www.word.mvps.org

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[BrianSites]

Hi all,

I finally figured out what the problem was -actually, it was a blend of
3 things. One was a simple typing error, that somehow I hadn't
noticed. The second was a few of the index entries had a space at the
end of the XE text. The third was the real problem I was asking about,
since it was six or seven different listings and the XE text was
identical. It turned out to be another field code, for the index, that
had somehow (probably by my error) gotten a ; instead of a : in it.
Apparently, this caused the problems, as once I changed it all returned
to normal in the index.

Thanks for your suggestions!