[texhax] Novice

[Karl Berry]

Greetings,

    I am a complete novice, but a friend of mine told me that I could use Tex
    software to compile an index. Is this true 

Yes, it is true.

    and if yes, where do I find the manual "how to do" this and 

Sorry, I cannot point to a howto guide on this specific topic.  Maybe
others know of one.  I can tell you that the most common program used
for this is called MakeIndex, in conjunction with LaTeX.

Note: you have to mark up what you want indexed.  The programs aren't
going to somehow automatically determine the index terms.

    what exactly would I need to download?

Any TeX system will include what you need (that is, latex, makeindex,
documentation, and a lot more).  See http://tug.org/begin.html for a
brief overview of the most commonly used ones on particular platforms,
among other information.

Hope this helps,
karl