LiveIndex

Live Index

Live Index now works with ePubs!

RobotIndexingLive Index will convert all the page numbers in your book’s index into live links. So when the user clicks on the page numbers in the PDF or ePub, he or she will be taken to the right page.

Live Index works with any text. It does not require the index to have been built with InDesign’s indexing feature. Even if the index was created by hand and pasted into the InDesign document, Live Index will still be able to convert all the numbers to live links.

Live Index works excellently whether your document is a single InDesign file (.indd), an InDesign book (.indb), or any other combination.

Live Index works with InDesign CS5 and higher, on PC and Mac. (If you need a version for CS4, please contact us.)

Go from this:

Index without live links

to this:

Index with live links

in a few mouse clicks (the rectangles around the page numbers are for illustration purposes – to demonstrate where the live links have been created; the script provides the option to remove them).

Features

  • Supports ePub and PDF export.
  • Works with any index – does not require use of InDesign’s indexing feature.
  • Works with single documents, InDesign books, or any combination of documents.
  • Mark the page numbers to convert with a character style before running the script, or let the script find the page numbers itself.
  • Intelligently deals with number ranges such as 134–52. Understands in this case “52” actually means page 152.
  • Works with InDesign CS5 and higher on Mac and PC.

 

Live Index Screenshot

Note Regarding ePubs

It is important to realize that Live Index cannot link the entry in the index to the exact word on the page in the ePub. What Live Index does instead, when set to ePub export mode, is to link each page number in the index to the first word on the original page of the book. So, if the index entry guides us to page 72, Live Index will link to the first word currently on page 72 of the InDesign file.

Thinking about it, this is actually exactly the information that an index contains. An index simply guides us to the relevant page. It does not tell us exactly where on that page to find the relevant topic. Live Index does the same, by linking to the first word on the page.

Please note that this is only when Live Index is set to ePub export mode. When it is set to PDF export mode, it links directly to the page, not to any text on the page!

Demo

You can download a trial version of this script here. It will create up to 12 links per index.

Instant Download

To purchase the full version of Live Index for only $69, click the “Buy Now” button. Your product and serial numbers will be available for instant download when you complete the purchase.

Money-back Guarantee

If you are not satisfied with Live Index for any reason, simply let us know within 30 days of purchase for a full refund.

“I would not have been able to get an electronic index without it.”

—Sandee Cohen, InDesign Guru

Buy Now

Live Index: $69.00

For multiple licenses (5 or more), please contact us to arrange a discount.

Requirements

System Requirements

  • InDesign CS5 or higher (including InDesign 2024)
  • Windows or Mac computer

Trial Download

Click on the button to download a limited trial version.

Article Comments

  1. user

    November 21, 2015 5:08 pm Reply

    Can you add a custom prefix function for that script? That would make things much easier!

    • Admin

      November 23, 2015 2:46 am Reply

      I’m not sure exactly what you mean by “custom prefix”. Could you elaborate or give an example?

      • user

        November 29, 2015 9:23 pm Reply

        It works perfectly for the index or TOC. But it would be great to use it for the whole document.
        Maybe you could add a field where I could write a regular expression which will be handled as the page prefix.
        For example my document’s pages have “p. ” as a prefix. I run the script and it links all strings that have starts with p. followed by a number with the corresponding page.

        • Admin

          November 29, 2015 9:31 pm Reply

          Now I understand. Well, you can actually do this already! It takes 2 steps:

          (1) Mark all page numbers throughout your document with a character style — call it “page-numbers” or something. You can use a GREP find/change to do this easily if all your page numbers have a standard prefix such as “p.”, as you mention.

          (2) Run LiveIndex. For Step 1, “Tell us where the index is”, choose the option “This entire document is the index”. For Step 2, “How can we tell which numbers refer to page numbers in the book?”, choose the option “Only numbers with this character style are page references”, and select the character style you created and applied to the page numbers with the GREP search.

          That’s it! LiveIndex will search through the entire document, and wherever it finds a number with the character style applied, it will turn it into a live hyperlink. Easy! (However, the “p.” prefix itself will not become part of the live hyperlink.)

  2. Lawrence

    May 18, 2016 4:11 pm Reply

    Hi,

    I am interested of the live index for Indesign. I am currently using Indesign CC 2015. I was wondering if this is the one we are looking for. I was wondering if there is demo that we can try or show us how it’s work.
    Please feel free to contact me [details redacted].

  3. Sara Ingle

    April 4, 2017 5:07 pm Reply

    Hi,

    I’m trying to use LiveIndex in InDesign CC and I’m having trouble telling LiveIndex that the pages are not normal page numbers, but are numbered by chapter and page (eg. 1-12 for chapter 1, page 12). The pages in the index are numbered in a similar way and I’m having trouble hyperlinking to the full page.

    Thanks.

    • Ariel

      April 4, 2017 8:11 pm Reply

      Hi Sara,
      I have an idea of what might be going on, but rather than shooting in the dark, could you send me a sample of the index (as an InDesign file of course). Basically, the entire page number should have a character style applied to it, and tell LiveIndex to use that. At the same time, if the chapter and page number are indeed separated by a hyphen (1-12), make sure you’re not telling LiveIndex to apply spanning based on a hyphen, because then it will think that 1-12 means pages 1 through 12. I’ll be wiser once I’ve seen the file, which can you please send to admin (at) id-extras.com. Thanks!

  4. Kevin Callahan

    April 14, 2017 12:02 am Reply

    Hi, I have an index with roman and arabic numerals. Do you have any tips for using your tool for an entry like this:

    Fiery, Marion, xliii, 3, 15, 26, 31; photos and and, xl–­xli

    Thanks!

    • Ariel

      April 14, 2017 12:48 am Reply

      Hi Kevin,

      To include the roman-numeral page numbers, you’ll have to use the “character style” option in Step 2.

      To make that work, obviously first it is necessary to apply a character style to all the page numbers in the index (both the arabic numerals and the roman numerals).

      The regular numbers are fairly easy to find, although you may need to do so one by one so as not to apply a character style to a year or date, say.

      The roman numerals is a little trickier. If you don’t have too many preliminary pages, you could just search for each separately, or you could use the following GREP which I just found here https://stackoverflow.com/questions/267399/how-do-you-match-only-valid-roman-numerals-with-a-regular-expression:

      ^M{0,4}(CM|CD|D?C{0,3})(XC|XL|L?X{0,3})(IX|IV|V?I{0,3})$

      Haven’t tested this though!

      Ariel

  5. Dave

    June 13, 2017 1:17 pm Reply

    Great script, but can it rememeber the last used options or change the default options, for instance, usually it’ll always be run on a document where we use a specific char style so would like to avoid having to change step 2 each time.

    Also if the preference was embedded within the script could we then one one instance of the script to auto process a set char style, then run another instance to run a second char style?

    Thanks in advance

    • Ariel

      July 6, 2017 6:21 pm Reply

      Hi Dave,
      The script can be run multiple times on a single file (so you could have multiple indexes), but it does not currently remember the last-used settings. I’ll add this to the feature-requests!

      • Dave

        August 23, 2017 6:23 pm Reply

        Are any updates planned, we’re keen to see some form of configurable options so we can script and automate indexing by utililising this script

  6. Leslee

    October 26, 2017 10:15 pm Reply

    Hi there, I am not clear on if this script will create the page numbers or just make static numbers linked?

    The issue I actually am facing is that I have do have a proper live index from a word import, but I am struggling to retain the italic formatting. I thought maybe I could paste in the static index from word with out page numbers and have a script find the word and auto generate the page numbers, retaining the italics.

    • Ariel

      October 27, 2017 2:32 am Reply

      Hi Leslee,
      As we discussed via email, LiveIndex does not create page numbers, it just makes static numbers linked, as you say.
      To generate the actual index with page numbers, have a look at Indiscripts.com IndexMatic, which does a great job of generating an index and adding page numbers. After using IndexMatic, you might want to come back to LiveIndex to turn those page numbers into clickable links…

  7. Dave Catchpole

    March 30, 2021 5:58 pm Reply

    Great script, still essential to us at the moment, however we’ve noticed it has a tendency to hang or appear to run away with itself when used in Indesign 2020, but runs fine in any other version.

    • Ariel

      April 28, 2021 12:06 am Reply

      Hi Dave,
      It’s not impossible, but I haven’t heard similar feedback from anyone else.
      Perhaps it’s a specific file?
      Feel free to send me the file, describe what steps you took to make it freeze, and I’ll see if I can duplicate the error my end.
      Thanks,
      Ariel

  8. Clark Kenyon

    June 1, 2021 8:04 am Reply

    I’m having some trouble making LiveIndex work. I’m trying it out on an ID file that was originally meant for print publication. The client hired an indexer who worked from the final PDF layout, so the index is manual. The index entries were styled, but the page numbers weren’t. So I used a Grep search to restyle all the numbers with a character style “Page number.”
    In the script’s dialog under Step 1 I have the all the text of the index selected. Under Step 2 I have only numbers with this character style are page references, and I have selected “Page number.” Under Step 3 I have Intelligently, as there are some numbers like 123-24. Under Step 4 I have Active document only. And under Step 5 I have ePub selected.
    I can see the hyperlinks in the hyperlinks panel and the pages they link to, but the index numbers are not active in the ePub export.

    • Ariel

      June 1, 2021 9:33 pm Reply

      Hi Clark,
      Can I trouble you to repost the question on the forum (http://id-extras.com/forum/viewforum.php?id=1) and I’ll try to answer there?
      Sounds like you’ve got everything set up correctly, so I’m not sure what’s going no offhand — and the discussion might get a little too long for comments on this page.
      Thanks!
      Ariel

      • Clark Kenyon

        June 18, 2021 4:51 am Reply

        I can do that, but in the meantime I tried the script on another ID doc and it worked perfectly. I would like to know what it is about the first document that made the script not function.

        • Ariel

          June 25, 2021 12:40 am Reply

          Hi Clark,
          I’d need you to send me the file to take a look.
          Thanks,
          Ariel

  9. Baldev

    February 15, 2022 5:54 pm Reply

    Hi Ariel,

    Live Index script
    As like character style, can we add an option to choose color and then script will find that particular color to make it live links.

    • Ariel

      February 15, 2022 6:23 pm Reply

      Hi Baldev,
      No, it only works with character styles.
      What you could do is find all the red (or whatever), replace it with a special character style just for LiveIndex, and then after you’ve finished running LiveIndex delete the character style.
      would that help?
      Ariel

  10. Rick

    March 8, 2022 12:06 am Reply

    I have two suggestions to make this product better. I thought I had mentioned this before, but I do not see it in the listing.

    I use this product on a regular basis and find one item that is really a pain in the butt.
    Every time I generate a Live Index, I must go into my hyperlinks panel and highlight all the hyperlinks that are titled “LiveIndex” and assign a character style to them.
    This is a real pain when you have over 300 or more hyperlinks that are created with Live Index.
    It would be so nice and easy to be able to choose a character style in the options before you generate the Live Index.
    Couldn’t you have a box like you do in the Hyperlink Pro product where you can choose the character style?
    Would you please do this. It would make things so much easier.

    • Ariel

      March 27, 2022 1:36 am Reply

      Hi Rick,
      Thanks for your suggestion.
      I will add it to the to-do list.
      And the other suggestion?
      Ariel

  11. Richard Coda

    September 10, 2022 5:22 am Reply

    Hi Ariel. Will this work for “page xx” to create a link for that specific page in the document? Can it use a prefix, such as “page”?

    • Ariel

      September 10, 2022 11:10 pm Reply

      LiveIndex will link the page numbers to the actual document pages. But there’s no option to add a linkable prefix.

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