4.12.1.2 Modifying index entries

All the index commands described in the previous section take an initial optional argument before the index term, which modify the index entry's meaning in various ways. You can specify only one of the following in any given command, except that begin and end can be specified together with pagemarkup=cs (separate them with a comma without a following space, like this: [begin,pagemarkup=defn]).

These work via MakeIndex's “encapsulation” feature. See Customizing indexing, if you're not using the default characters for the MakeIndex operators. The other optional argument (specifying a subterm) is independent of these.

Here are the possibilities:

begin

end

These mark an index entry as the beginning or end of a range. The index entries must match exactly for MakeIndex to recognize them. Example:

          \sidx[begin]{future}[Cohen, Leonard]
          ...
          \sidx[end]{future}[Cohen, Leonard]
     

will typeset as something like

          future,
            Cohen, Leonard, 65–94
     

see

This marks an index entry as pointing to another; the real index term is an additional (non-optional) argument to the command. Thus you can anticipate a term readers may wish to look up, yet which you have decided not to index. Example:

          \sidx[see]{analysis}[archetypal]{archetypal criticism}
     

becomes

          analysis,
            archetypal, see archetypal criticism
     

seealso

Similar to see (the previous item), but also allows for normal index entries of the referencing term. The normal index entries have to be created separately—seealso does not contribute a page number to the index entry. For example, if you have indexed a term on pages 75, 97 and 114, and then add a seealso entry for the term:

          \sidx[seealso]{archetypal criticism}[elements of]{dichotomies}
     

the index will contain

          archetypal criticism,
            elements of, 75, 97, 114, see also dichotomies
     

(Aside for the academically curious: The archetypally critical book I took these dichotomous examples from is Laurence Berman's The Musical Image, which I happened to co-design and typeset.)

pagemarkup=cs

This puts \cs before the page number in the typeset index, thus allowing you to underline definitive entries, italicize examples, and the like. You do not precede the control sequence cs with a backslash. (That just leads to expansive difficulties.) Naturally it is up to you to define the control sequences you want to use. Example:

          \def\defn#1{{\sl #1}}
          \sidx[pagemarkeup=defn]{indexing}
     

becomes something like

          indexing, \defn{75}