LIKE MOST PROFESSIONALS, indexers use a wide range of software. Book and website indexers work with programs which allow them to enter index headings, subheadings and page references, and which organise these into alphabetical or other orders. The programs also allow checking of cross-references and provide output to a formatted word processing file for final printing and sending to the client. Editing and other word processing work is an important part of an indexer's job.

Word processing software such as Microsoft Word and publishing programs such as Adobe FrameMaker and Adobe PageMaker allow users to embed indexing terms in a document and to generate indexes. Thus indexing can be completed before page numbers have been finalised, and index tags can move with portions of the document if they are reused elsewhere.

Indexes created for PDF documents can be automatically linked to the text they refer to. These indexes can then be incorporated into the PDF document or made available via the web.

‘Indexing software’ also includes programs that claim to analyse and index text automatically, without human intervention. These use structural features of the text (capital letters, words repeated several times) to try to make semantic judgements, identifying ‘important’ words and phrases and then listing these in alphabetical order with page numbers attached. The results are usually unimpressive for books and journals, but in large collection indexes automated programs may have a role to play.