Indexing – How to Selectively Remove the Comma in an Index Entry in LaTeX

idxlayoutindexingmakeindexpdftex

In an index, I would like to be able to remove the comma that immediately precedes the page number for certain entries only.

Consider the MWE

\documentclass{book}
\usepackage{imakeidx}
\let\cleardoublepage\clearpage
\makeindex
\usepackage{idxlayout}
\usepackage{xcolor}

\begin{document}
\Large
    
Some words.\index{HEADING@\textbf{HEADING}!01@\textbf{\color{red}{\textit{So entfernen Sie das Komma?---}}}}\index{HEADING@\textbf{HEADING}!02@\textbf{\color{red}{\textit{But I want the comma to remain here.}}}}
    
\idxlayout{columns=1}
\printindex
\end{document}

which produces the output

QUESTION: How may I remove the comma following Komma?— in the first entry, while retaining the comma in the second entry?

Thank you.

Best Answer

Just uses a macro that discards it:

\documentclass{book}
\usepackage{imakeidx}
\let\cleardoublepage\clearpage
\makeindex
\usepackage{idxlayout}
\usepackage{xcolor}

\newcommand\textbfnocomma[2]{\textbf{#1}}
\begin{document}
\Large
    
Some words.\index{HEADING@\textbf{HEADING}!01@\textbfnocomma{\color{red}{\textit{So entfernen Sie das Komma?---}}}}\index{HEADING@\textbf{HEADING}!02@\textbf{\color{red}{\textit{But I want the comma to remain here.}}}}
    
\idxlayout{columns=1}
\printindex
\end{document}

Related Solutions

Indexing – Resolving Disappearing Index Entries with Idxlayout

I put the example on Overleaf at

https://www.overleaf.com/read/gnzhpncbswqp

which makes it easy to try various texlive releases (back to 2014) your index fails in 2018 or older and works in texlive 2019 and later

In texlive 2018 if you look at the makeindex log (ilg) you see

This is makeindex, version 2.15 [TeX Live 2018] (kpathsea + Thai support).
Scanning input file output.idx...
!! Input index error (file = output.idx, line = 1):
   -- First argument too long (max 1024).
done (0 entries accepted, 1 rejected).
Nothing written in output.ind.
Transcript written in output.ilg.

presumably newer makeindex have been compiled with a larger input buffer.

pdftex – How to Universally Remove Commas from Each Index Entry in LaTeX

You need to adjust the delim_1 field of makeindex, since the page numbers you list is at level 1. From makeindex.hlp:

 delim_0          ", "
                          Delimiter to be inserted between  a
                          level  0  key  and  its  first page
                          number (default: comma followed  by
                          a blank).

 delim_1          ", "
                          Delimiter to be inserted between  a
                          level  1  key  and  its  first page
                          number (default: comma followed  by
                          a blank).

 delim_2          ", "
                          Delimiter to be inserted between  a
                          level  2  key  and  its  first page
                          number (default: comma followed  by
                          a blank).

 delim_n          ", "
                          Delimiter to  be  inserted  between
                          two  page  numbers for the same key
                          in any level (default:  comma  fol-
                          lowed by a blank).

 delim_r          "--"
                          Delimiter to  be  inserted  between
                          the   starting   and   ending  page
                          numbers of a range.

 delim_t          ""
                          Delimiter to be inserted at the end
                          of a page list.  This delimiter has
                          no effect on entries which have  no
                          associated page list.

In short, include/change the following in your preamble:

\begin{filecontents*}[overwrite]{\jobname.ist}
delim_1 " "
\end{filecontents*}

\makeindex[options=-s \jobname.ist]

The above code writes a file \jobname.ist - a makeindex style file - and changes the default value of delim_1 to " " - a regular space (from ", "). Then, to use this newly-created style file, pass the option -s \jobname.ist to your call to \makeindex. If you have page numbers at multiple levels, just add delim_0, delim_2, ... to the .ist.

\documentclass{book}

\begin{filecontents*}[overwrite]{\jobname.ist}
delim_1 " "
\end{filecontents*}

\usepackage{imakeidx}
\let\cleardoublepage\clearpage
\makeindex[options=-s \jobname.ist]
\usepackage{idxlayout}
\usepackage{xcolor}

\begin{document}
\large
    
Some words.
\index{HEADING@\textbf{HEADING}!02@\textbf{\color{red}{\textit{How to universally remove the comma?}}}}
\index{HEADING@\textbf{HEADING}!03@\textbf{\color{red}{\textit{How to universally remove the comma?}}}}
\index{HEADING@\textbf{HEADING}!04@\textbf{\color{red}{\textit{How to universally remove the comma?}}}}
\index{HEADING@\textbf{HEADING}!05@\textbf{\color{red}{\textit{How to universally remove the comma?}}}}
\index{HEADING@\textbf{HEADING}!06@\textbf{\color{red}{\textit{How to universally remove the comma?}}}}
    
\idxlayout{columns=1}
\printindex

\end{document}

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Indexing – Resolving Disappearing Index Entries with Idxlayout

pdftex – How to Universally Remove Commas from Each Index Entry in LaTeX

Related Question