Lesson 6: Indexing Your Documents
When to build your index
Many people recommend doing all of your indexing at the end of the writing process. This is a holdover from the time when indexing had to be done by hand and the simple shift of a single page could invalidate most of your work to date. In these days of automatic indexing and markers that move with words as they shift locations there really is no technical reason to index at the end of the process and many people choose to index as they write.
There are advantages and disadvantages to either choice. Indexing as you go definitely slows down the writing process, meaning it will take longer before you're reading for editing and review. Many people find the resulting stop and go writing process prevents them from properly concentrating on what they're writing and thus won't index as they go. If you index at the end of a tight schedule, you can do your indexing while others are editing and reviewing your book, then give the editors your index once they hand back the rest of your book.
In my experience, leaving the indexing to the end of the writing process can lead to a very rushed and often inferior product. Most non-writers fail to understand the importance of a good index and it's more difficult to get a product manager to give you more time to index a book than it is to get more time to write the last two chapters. On the other hand, indexing as you go is more likely to lead to inconsistencies as you could make different choices regarding capitalization or marker placement or other index features during different phases of the indexing. These problems should be caught during the editing process. If you index as you go, be sure that someone edits the final result with an eye toward consistency.
Another alternative is to index each chapter or major section after it's finished. This allows you to write major chunks of text without constant interruption and still avoids the rush of trying to fully index a book when time is running out. It can still lead to some consistency problems, but again these should be caught during the editing process.
