13.5 Defining New Indices

In addition to the predefined indices, you may use the @defindex and @defcodeindex commands to define new indices. These commands create new indexing @-commands with which you mark index entries. The @defindex command is used like this:

@defindex name

The name of an index should be a two letter word, such as ‘au’. For example:

@defindex au

This defines a new index, called the ‘au’ index. At the same time, it creates a new indexing command, @auindex, that you can use to make index entries. Use this new indexing command just as you would use a predefined indexing command.

For example, here is a section heading followed by a concept index entry and two ‘au’ index entries.

@section Cognitive Semantics
@cindex kinesthetic image schemas
@auindex Johnson, Mark
@auindex Lakoff, George

(Evidently, ‘au’ serves here as an abbreviation for “author”.)

In general, Texinfo constructs the new indexing command by concatenating the name of the index with ‘index’; thus, defining an ‘xy’ index leads to the automatic creation of an @xyindex command.

Use the @printindex command to print the index, as you do with the predefined indices. For example:

@node Author Index
@unnumbered Author Index

@printindex au

The @defcodeindex is like the @defindex command, except that, in the printed output, it prints entries in an @code font by default instead of a roman font.

You should define new indices before the end-of-header line of a Texinfo file, and (of course) before any @synindex or @syncodeindex commands (see section Texinfo File Header).