How do you create an Index in Pages?

Does anyone know about an index function? Would Apple please get around to an index function? Word has had it for a while, so catch up, would you Apple folks? The previous Community Posts concluded that Pages has no built in Index function and that we all would have to create a book index manually. So, unless I hear otherwise, I'm doing just that. Here's how: In the back of the book, in an Index chapter, I manually type:

Index

applications

basics

early

admission

factors

books about

and etc.

Then place a book mark within the book text at the spot for each item. Name the book mark to match, such as "applications" & "applications, basics" Then you highlight the word in the index (applications) and link it to the bookmark "applications". Yes this is a royal pain in the neck.

I'm doing an iBooks ePub (converted by Pages) so my links don't need a page number, as would a paperback book, so if you change your pagination after some edits, then all your page numbers you typed manually could switch. Even more of a pain in the neck, so do the index as the very last step. Word for Mac does provide and index function, but when Word for Mac books convert to ePub, they seem to come up with more errors than is worth it. I DO NOT recommend Word for Mac for ePub, or a paperback or hardback either, really since you need all three in this day and age, so I'm just doing my next book in Pages. I already did a 350 page book on Amazon (CreateSpace) , Kindle, Nook Press (B& N), and IngramSpark (wholesaler to all bookstores), so I can tell you from experience to just start with Pages, learn the formatting and you will convert much easier to ePub and pdfs for paperback and hardback, than screwing around with Word. Word for Mac crashed regularly, losing work, (unless you pay extra for autosave, thanks for nothing), the PDFs from Word had serious font and size change that wouldn't correct themselves, no matter how many times I redid the pdfs and the Word helpline had no solution, nor did I get any email back with a fix, after I complained (a lot) via email that the pdfs were screwed up. (It was in the tables, which I had no choice but to use for my fairly long data grids.) I had to correct the many pdf errors in the tables from Word for Mac manually with Adobe Acrobat before I could sell my books.

Please understand that when you are ready for the book sellers (Amazon CreateSpace, Nook Press, IngramSpark) for a paperback or hardback book, they only use a PDF! CreateSpace incorrectly has advised us to use Word only, but that is wrong, wrong, wrong as CreateSpace still only accepts a PDF anyway (duh), including from Pages or anything else. The cover has to be a pdf too. So you may as well use Pages from the start, which also converts more easily to ePub (and Pages converts for to ePub for free.) Canva has some free basic covers to use, but to tweak them, I used InDesign. Anyway, with a PDF and a Canva cover, you can publish for FREE on CreateSpace (Amazon) Kindle, and Nook (Barnes and Noble online), and IngramSpark only charges about $30, which get you a wholesale account that ALL bookstores in the US use, independents, Barnes and Noble (speak to the local managers) and all libraries.

As for iBooksAuthor, it requires you to cut and paste each chapter into it's format, so it does the Chapter Table of Contents for you, but not endnotes, footnotes or an index with links. That's all manually done with bookmarks and links as above. And be warned that when you chop apart your Word, Pages or other type of full book with bookmarks and links to be able to cut and paste them into IBooksAuthor, you loose all those links. So if using iBooksAuthor, just start there first and sure don't waste time on bookmarks and links or a Table of Contents in another format, which I did and just had to throw away when I tried iBooksAuthor, before deciding to go back to Pages.

For my endnotes in my ePubs for iBooks, Kindle, etc. I included a "(Return)" option in each endnote, so the ebook reader can jump back from the endnote to his or her place in the book, not losing their place. It takes a few more steps to link each of the (Return) links back to the endnote, but it's very nice for the reader.