7.16 Indices formatting

Two different things needs to be handled for indices formatting, the place where the index term appears, the index entry, and the index list itself. The indexing commands like @cindex determines where index entries appear, and the index list is printed with a @printindex command.

7.16.1 Formatting of index entries

Index entry places in the main text may be the target for hypertext references. Their formatting is controlled by the function associated with the following function reference:

Function Reference: $target index_entry_label $identifier $preformatted

$identifier should be used to create a target for links (typically associated with a name or id attribute in HTML). $preformatted is true if the index entry appeared in preformatted text.

7.16.2 Customizing the formatting of index lists

The index entries are sorted alphabetically. A whole index list is considered to be composed of letter entries. A letter entry is composed by all the index entries beginning with that letter. A letter may be a non alphabetical character, but we call it letter here.

An index summary appears at the beginning and at the end of an index list, and should be used to jump directly to a letter entry. Indices lists may be split across pages, thus the different letters may appear on different files. The number of index entries appearing on each page is determined by a variable $SPLIT_INDEX if set. The default is to split indices after 100 entries.

The formatting of all these elements is controlled by the following function references:

formatting of a letter in a summary

Function Reference: $letter summary_letter $letter $file $identifier

This function is used to format a letter appearing in a summary, refering to a letter entry in the index list. $letter is the letter. $file is the file name where the letter entry appears. More precisely, it is empty when the letter entry is on the same page than the summary, it contains the file name when the index page is split accross page. $identifier is an identifier for the target letter entry.

formatting of a summary

Function Reference: $summary index_summary \@alphabetical_letters \@nonalphabetical_letters

\@alphabetical_letters and \@nonalphabetical_letters contain the formatted summary letters, formatted with the above function.

formatting of an index entry

Function Reference: $entry index_entry $entry_href $entry_text $section_href $section_heading

$entry_href is a reference to the place where the index entry appeared, $entry_text is the corresponding text. $section_href is a reference to the beginning of the sectioning element containing the index entry, $section_heading is the heading of the element.

formatting of letter entry

Function Reference: $letter_entry index_letter $letter $identifier $index_entries_text

This function formats a letter entry, consisting in all the index entries beginning with this letter. $letter is the letter, $identifier should be used to create a target for links (typically links from summaries), and $index_entries_text is the text of the index entries formatted as described above.

formatting of whole index

Function Reference: $index print_index $index_text $index_name

$index_text is the text of all the index entries grouped by letter appearing in that page formatted as above. index_name is the name of the index, the argument of @printindex.

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