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How to Remove All the Index Entries

February 23rd, 2008
Written by David Blatner

KRB wrote:

I have some documents with old indexes, which I need to delete to start all over from scratch. I can’t seem to find a way of removing all the index entries. Any suggestions?

That is frustrating! Fortunately, Find/Change comes to the rescue.

  1. Open all the documents (the ones you want to strip of index entries) at the same time.
  2. Then open the Find/Change dialog box (Command/Ctrl-F).
  3. Type ^I into the “Find What” field and make sure the Change To field is blank.
  4. Set the Search pop-up menu to All Documents.
  5. Click Change All.

Wowza, they’re gone!

I know what you’re wondering: How on earth did David know the special code for index entries? Well, of course, I have a trick: I just selected Index Entries from the little flyout menu to the right of the Find What field. Those flyout menus are so useful!

findindex2

Posted in Long Docs, Mailbag Answers |

11 Responses to “How to Remove All the Index Entries”

  1. Dave Saunders said:
    February 23rd, 2008 at 1:29 am

    A word of warning about using Find/Change to locate index markers. While David’s tip is perfectly fine for getting rid of them all, if you use Find/Change to locate an index marker and then, with it still selected, open the Index panel, whether by using the menu or by clicking on its collapsed icon, you will crash InDesign CS3. This bug is still present in 5.0.2.

    Dave

  2. Dave Saunders said:
    February 23rd, 2008 at 1:32 am

    To avoid the crash, make sure you open the Index panel first.

    Dave

  3. Mike Witherell said:
    February 23rd, 2008 at 5:03 pm

    Now, as to starting over, keep these shortcuts in mind:

    Cmd u for an index entry (ctrl u for Windows)

    Shift/Opt/Cmd ] for an index entry without dialog box (shift/alt/ctrl ] for Windows)

    Shift Opt Cmd [ for a proper name index with last name first, first name last. (shift/alt/ctrl [ for Windows)

  4. Fred Goldman said:
    February 24th, 2008 at 12:51 am

    Really? The bug is still there in 5.0.2? In the readme they claimed to have fixed it.

  5. Dave Saunders said:
    February 24th, 2008 at 2:13 am

    It crashed 5.0.2 on my G4 tiBook. I’ve not tried it on the more recent machines.

    Dave

  6. Dave Saunders said:
    February 24th, 2008 at 2:17 am

    Looking at that PDF, I see this:

    InDesign CS3 unexpectedly quits when selecting “Update Preview” in the Index panel. [1570415]

    which sounds like a similar bug but not the one I’m talking about.

    Dave

  7. Fred Goldman said:
    February 25th, 2008 at 2:13 am

    Ah, I misread. Thanks for the clear up.

  8. Maarten van Kleinwee said:
    February 28th, 2008 at 12:44 pm

    Even after removing all the index markers using Find/Change, the index panel may still show entries when clicking the Topic radio button at the top. To remove these entries, select one of them and then choose Remove Unused Topics from the flyout menu. You now have a fully clean Index panel….

  9. Laura said:
    March 28th, 2008 at 11:30 pm

    Hi all, I’m working in CS2, and I seem to recall having seen a similar method for removing all index entries…any thoughts?

  10. Laura said:
    April 3rd, 2008 at 1:12 am

    Aha. Nevermind, I found it. A lovely DeleteIndex script. :)

  11. Sharleen said:
    April 15th, 2008 at 1:54 pm

    Laura - I’ve been looking for that delete index script! Where did you find it? Thanks

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