Please Note: If you are an author or editor needing to prepare an index to your book or other publication, you may wish to consult our Indexer Locator, which lists professional indexers, their areas of expertise, and full contact information. Find the indexer best suited for your project.

Dedicated Indexing Software
Web Indexing
Utilities and Add-Ons
Thesaurus Management Software

Note: ASI does not endorse these products and makes no claims as to their effectiveness or suitability for any particular use.

The software tools used to generate indexes come in many flavors and varieties. Which technique is used depends on variables such as budget, eventual re-usability of the source material, time constraints, media used to publish the material, file sizes and transferral issues, and individual preferences. There are essentially six different methodologies for indexing: 

• Standalone or Dedicated tools, usually used for back-of-the-book indexes, allow indexers to work from page-numbered galleys. The indexing is completely separate from the published material. Dedicated indexing tools are listed below.
• Embedded indexing is the process of creating index entries electronically in a document's files. The indexer inserts the index entries as invisible text in the electronic files. Although desktop publishing packages are not the best tools for indexing, they can be used to create effective embedded indexes. For technical documents that will be updated frequently or will go online, indexers can create embedded indexes that will help their audience find information quickly and efficiently. Some tools that allow for embedded indexing include FrameMaker, Microsoft Word, Adobe InDesign (or the older PageMaker), and Quark Xpress. Markup languages that allow for embedding indexing include SGML, HTML, XML and TeX/LaTeX.
• Tagging allow indexing codes to be embedded in the electronic text after the indexing is complete. The indexer inserts numbered dummy tags in the files, and then builds the index separately. The final step uses macros to insert the indexing at each tag in the files. Many of these tools are developed in-house to fit the publishing group's needs..
• Keywording is used primarily in online help materials. It can be hard-coded jumps, similar to WWW links, or it can be inserted as embedded coding and built into a list by the software.
• Automated indexing software, a tool that now accompanies most word-processing software, build a concordance or a word list, from processed files. Although the manufacturers often claim these packages build indexes, the actual results are a list of words and phrases, sometimes useful in the beginning stages of building an index. Usability tests of these packages have shown that the word lists omit many key ideas and phrases, and cannot fine-tune terminology for easy retrieval, or build the needed hierarchies of ideas that professional indexing can.
• Free-text and weighted-text searching tools are not discussed in these pages, but are aspects of information retrieval that indexers are very interested in.

Dedicated Indexing Software

This list of dedicated software geared toward the needs of professional indexers is for informational purposes only. It is not intended to be a comprehensive list of all tools that indexers may use in the course of their work. ASI does not endorse any product.

CINDEX™ (for Windows, and Macintosh) 
Indexing Research
620 Park Avenue, #183
Rochester, NY 14607
Tel: (585) 413-1819
Email: info@indexres.com
URL: http://www.indexres.com

Publishers and government agencies may contact the authorized reseller of CINDEX:
Leverage Technologies, Inc.
9519 Greystone Parkway
Cleveland, OH 44141-2939
Tel: (888) 838-1203
Fax: (440) 838-1203
Email: info@LevTechInc.com
URL: http://www.LevTechInc.com

Macrex™ (for Windows and DOS)
Wise Bytes  -- Macrex Support Office, North America
3056 Castro Valley Blvd #194
Castro Valley, CA 94546
Tech. Support: (650) 756-0821
Sales: (877) 9-MACREX
Fax: (650) 292-2302  
Email: macrex@wisebytes.biz 
URL: http://www.macrex.com

In North America:
20% discount for ASI members;
$200 discount for students & instructors of approved indexing courses.

SKY Index™ Professional (for Windows) 
SKY Software 
114 Lariat Court 
Stephens City, VA 22655
Tel: (800) 776-0137 or (540) 869-6581
Fax: (540) 869-6581
Email: info@sky-software.com 
URL: http://www.sky-software.com

wINDEX (for DOS) 
Susan Holbert Indexing Services 
24 Harris Street 
Waltham, MA 02452-6105 
Tel: (Toll-free) (877) 408-7299
Fax: (707)-248-1342
Email: susan.h@rcn.com 
URL: http://www.abbington.com/holbert/windex.html   

Web Indexing

While dedicated indexing programs can be used in indexing web sites, these programs are specifically designed to aid indexers working with web sites and other HTML documents.

HTML Indexer™ (for Windows)
David M. Brown
Brown Inc.
Portland, OR
E-Mail: info@html-indexer.com
URL: http://www.html-indexer.com/ 

XRefHT32 (freeware)
Prof. Tim Craven
Faculty of Information and Media Studies
University of Western Ontario
London, Ontario
Canada, N6A 5B7
E-Mail (text only): craven@uwo.ca
URL: http://publish.uwo.ca/~craven/freeware.htm 

    James Lamb has written a guide to using XRefHT32 titled: Website Indexes: visitors to content in two clicks, or website indexing with XRefHT32 freeware (2006). It can be purchased at: http://www.lulu.com/content/300848

Utilities and Add-ons

DEXter (for Word)
Email: editor@editorium.com
URL: http://www.editorium.com/DEXter.htm

emDEX (for FrameMaker)
P.O. Box 41117 Rockwood Post Office
4141 Dixie Road
Mississauga, Ontario L4W 5C9
Canada
Email: info@emdex.ca
URL: http://www.emdex.ca

IndexAssistant (for Word) 
jambient Software
487 King Street
Peterborough, Ontario K9J 2T1
Canada
Email: jambientSoftware@cogeco.ca
URL: http://www.jambient.com/indexassistant

IXgen (for FrameMaker) 
Frank Stearns Associates 
17201 SE 38th Circle 
Vancouver, WA 98683 
franks@fsatools.com 
Tel: (800) 567-6421 
Tel: Outside USA: 360/892-3970 
Fax: 360/253-1498 
URL: http://www.fsatools.com 

Leverage Technologies, Inc.
Various software add-ons, such as

EntryExpander (for CINDEX™ and Sky Index™ Professional)

HTML/Prep (for various programs)

IndexCheck (for CINDEX™ and Sky Index™ Professional)

Leverage Technologies, Inc.
9519 Greystone Parkway
Cleveland, OH 44141-2939
Tel: (888)-838-1203
Fax: (440)-838-1203
Email: info@LevTechInc.com
URL: http://www.LevTechInc.com

Timekeep for Windows 
Charles R. Anderson 
P.O. Box 15643 
Seattle,WA 98115-0642 
anderson@the-indexer.com 
Tel: (206-527-5446) 
A free 30-day demonstration copy (full version) is available at: 
http://www.the-indexer.com/timekeep.htm

WordEmbed (for Word)
URL: http://jalamb.com/wordembed.html

To provide information or make a suggestion, send email to webmaster@asindexing.org
Home	A–Z  Index	News	About ASI	Indexing   Information	Indexing   Resources
	Annual   Meetings	Letters from   ASI's President	Chapters	Special Interest Groups  (SIGS)	Web Site  Policy