User-defined alphabetic index, create 2nd entry, 1st key,... fields grayed out

eighty2 · March 30, 2023, 2:24pm

Version: 7.4.5.1 / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: 40(Build:1)
CPU threads: 2; OS: Linux 5.15; UI render: default; VCL: gtk3
Locale: en-US (en_US.utf8); UI: en-US
7.4.5-1

.odt document
User was lucky to fill built-in alphabetic index*, then to insert index of entries into document.
*) menu bar > menu Insert > sub-menu Table of Contents and Index… > Index Entry…
As next user was lucky to create own index by pushing one item into** (abbreviation, corresponding long text).
**) same way as above
As next user wants to add one more, then further item/-s to user-defined index. For this one word is highlighted/selected in document text. Add entry dialog presents user with 1st key, and 2nd key fields grayed out. At the same time menu bar > Edit menu > Reference… sub-menu >>> all sub-entries this sub-menu are grayed out, inclusively Index Entry…

Where may reason be located?

ajlittoz · March 30, 2023, 2:45pm

Which is your native language? Your lack of fluency in English makes it difficult to understand your present question.

2nd key in Index Entry dialog is enabled only after a 1st key has been defined.

Regarding Edit>Reference>…, I never used it. Help says it allows to edit footnotes, index or bibliography entries but there are better ways to do that. So explain what you want to do so that we can suggest a procedure.

eighty2 · March 30, 2023, 3:15pm

Thanks for hints.

Not only 2nd key field is grayed out, 1st key field does that too.
It’s about Writer stock alphabetic index and user-defined index, latter one will be built from
pairs of one word and long string

main goal: maintain and use in document user-defined alphabetic index. Also to maintain and use in document Writer built-in alphabetic index
user index needs to be comprised from multiple index entries, instead of just one
if needed, to examine and fix index data-set (the idea is to use for this following: menu bar > Edit menu > Reference… sub-menu > Index Entry…)

ajlittoz · March 30, 2023, 3:51pm

User-Defined “index” is not an alphabetical index (bad name in Writer !). It will give you something similar to a TOC where the “heading” is replaced by your selected word. Identical entries are not merged as in an alphabetical index. Instead, they are listed in document order (hence “similar to a TOC”). Consequently, there is no 1st key nor 2nd key because they don’t make sense in a “TOC”.

I think Edit>Reference>… is broken for that. Workaround is as follows: right-click on index entry and Index Entry. The dialog shows thick arrows which allow you to navigate to previous/next entry.

It is easy to locate index entries after enabling View>Field Shadings. Prefer to attach index entries to full words (selected by double-click) rather than to single location. It is more difficult to correctly right-click in the latter case.

There is only a single Alphabetical Index in Writer (shame). You can give the illusion of several indexes if you cheat a bit, using 1st and 2nd key. Since it’s cheating, it is tricky to get it right. 1st key will be the name of your “other” index (you should also give a name in here to the “standard” index so that all its entries remain grouped). 2nd key and main entry are available for your use.

You’ll need to customise the Structure: line in Entries of the index insertion dialog to your expectations and also paragraph styles Index 1 to Index 3 because you’re abusing the feature in an usual way. As already said, this is very tricky but doable.