How to Create an Auto-Index

1. Do one of the following, depending on the part of the user interface you are using:

   • Ribbon Select Project > New > Advanced > Auto-index Phrase Set.

   • Right-Click In the Project Organizer, right-click on the Advanced folder and from the context menu select Add Auto-index Phrase Set.

   The Add File dialog opens.

2. In the File Type field at the top, make sure Auto-index Phrase Set is selected.
3. In the Source area, choose to create the new file based on a template or an existing file.
   • New From Template Choose either a factory template file or one of your own custom template files as a starting point. The new file will take on all of the settings contained in the template. If you want to use the factory template provided by Flare, expand the Factory Templates folder and click on a template file. If you want to use your own custom template file, expand the appropriate folder and click on a file. See Templates.
   • New From Existing Choose an existing file of the same type as a starting point for your new file. As with template files, your new file will take on all of the settings contained in the file you select. To use this option, click , use the Open File dialog to find a file, and double-click it.
4. (Optional) If you want to place the file into a subfolder previously created in the Content Explorer or Project Organizer, in the Folder field click and select the subfolder. Otherwise, keep the default location. See Creating Subfolders.
5. In the File Name field, provide a name for the auto-index phrase set file.
6. (Optional) If you want to apply condition tags to the file, expand the Attributes section at the bottom of the dialog. Next to the Condition Tags field, click and select the conditions you want to apply. Click OK. See Applying Conditions to Content.
7. (Optional) If you want to apply file tags, expand the Attributes section at the bottom of the dialog. Next to the File Tags field, click and select the file tags you want to apply. Click OK. See Associating Tags With Files.
8. Click Add. The Auto-index Editor opens. Also, the auto-index file (.flaix extension) is added to the Advanced folder in the Project Organizer. In the future, you can open the auto-index phrase set from there.
9. For each phrase in your project that you want to be automatically converted to a particular index entry, complete the following steps in the Auto-index Editor:
   1. In the local toolbar, click . The Auto-Index dialog opens and a new row is added to the editor.

   2. In the Phrase field, type the word(s) that you want Flare to find in your project and use as the basis for a new index entry. Please note that the fields in this dialog are case-sensitive; therefore, if you enter a phrase with the initial word capitalized, only occurrences just like that in your topics will be used to create index entries. If you want to insert a variable in a field, you can click . The variable will appear as syntax in the field, but in the output the variable definition will be shown.

      Note If you want to see the variable syntax replaced by the variable definition, click in the local toolbar of the editor. This shows you the "Evaluated Phrase," which determines the actual text of the variable.

   3. If you want the auto-index to add markers to words regardless of if they are upper or lower case, select Ignore case.

   4. In the Index Term field, enter the word(s) to be added to the generated index. To create a multi-level index entry, separate the first-level term and the second-level term with a colon. Again, you can insert a variable by clicking .

      Example You entered pasta in the Phrase field and Pasta in the Index Term field. In that case, the generated index in the print-based output will display like this:

      

      The index entry points to any topics where the lowercase instance of "pasta" has been found. If you also want the index entry to point to occurrences where the word is not all lowercase ("Pasta"), add another row to the Auto-Index Editor and create a phrase for it (i.e., enter Pasta in both the Phrase field and the Index Term field).

      Let's say that your project talks about many kinds of pasta and you want to create multiple index entries for certain words, some with single-level entries and others with sublevels. Maybe you want Flare to scan the project for "rigatoni." When it finds occurrences, you might want a single-level index entry like this:

      

      In that case, you would enter rigatoni in the Phrase field and Rigatoni in the Index Term field. That index entry would point to all of instances of "rigatoni" in the project. But you also might want a multi-level index entry displayed like this:

      

      In that case, you would enter rigatoni in the Phrase field and Pasta:rigatoni in the Index Term field.

   5. Click OK.
10. Click to save your work.

What’s Next?

If you are creating print-based output, make sure you also create a topic with an Index proxy. See Creating an Index Manually for Print.

After you generate output, Flare scans the project for the phrases you provided and adds them to the generated index (along with any index markers that you added to topics manually).