OMG ! I could delete an index in Microsoft word?

No, this post doesn’t fit the context of this blog and I know that 🙂

It isn’t about socially social media or the newest version of ‘Web’. But it is a useful tip, that all Market researchers who prepare research-reports and executive summaries are perhaps going to appreciate. Needless to mention, this post is focused towards advanced users of Microsoft word.

Problem – How to delete all index entries from a Microsoft word document [Don’t ask me why would somebody want to delete an index 😉 I am assuming the problem is already there !!]

What is an index? – Remember the search-index that you had at the back of your book in your hay-days ? The one that you could use to identify wherever your favorite keyword in the book was present.

Assumption – You have already created a word document with those countless index entires.

Trick 1

1.  In your word document, open the find & replace window by pressing  Ctrl + F

2. Click on the ‘More’ button

3. Click on the ‘Special’ button and select ‘Field’

4. Click on ‘Replace all’ button and you’re home all the index entries disappear

Catch Along with the index entries it also replaces your ‘TOC’ [Table of Contents] and ‘List of Figures & Tables’.

Trick 2 [Exclusively for index]

1. With the Word document open, press [Alt][F11] to launch the Visual Basic Editor (VBE).
2. Select Module from the insert menu
3. Enter the following code in ‘Macro’ and hit the run button to delete all index entries

Sub DeleteIndexEntries()
  Dim doc As Document
  Dim fld As Field
  Set doc = ActiveDocument
  For Each fld In doc.Fields
    fld.Select
    If fld.Type = wdFieldIndexEntry Then
      fld.Delete
    End If

  Next
  Set fld = Nothing
  Set doc = Nothing
End Sub

Credits – Customized avtaar of TechRepublic’s article on Remove field codes from Word documents with this handy macro