There is no right or wrong answer to this. As you gain experience, you will develop your own work habits that fit you best. Some authors add index keywords as they work on each topic. Other authors wait until they are near the end of the development process and add index keywords all at once. Here are a few benefits of waiting until the later in the process to add index keywords:
- If you add index keywords as you create and work on each topic, it's possible that you will forget to add index keywords if you later make changes to a topic. If you wait until the later in the process to add index keywords all at once, you are less likely to miss sections in topics.
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You might find that your wording is more consistent if you wait to add all your index keywords at the same time. Projects can take months to develop, and over time it is easy to stray from using consistent terms.
Example Early in the development process, you might start using the word "modify" in several index keywords, but later on you might forget and start using the word "change" instead. In the end, some topics would be connected to index keywords using the word "modify," while other topics would be connect to keywords using the word "change."
- For authors who add index keywords all at once, Flare provides two features that can be quite useful ("Index Entry Mode" and "saved layouts").
