MakeIndex is a computer program which provides a sorted

index Index (or its plural form indices) may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional entities * Index (''A Certain Magical Index''), a character in the light novel series ''A Certain Magical Index'' * The Index, an item on a Halo megastru ...

from unsorted raw data. MakeIndex can process raw data output by various programs, however, it is generally used with

LaTeX Latex is an emulsion (stable dispersion) of polymer microparticles in water. Latexes are found in nature, but synthetic latexes are common as well. In nature, latex is found as a milky fluid found in 10% of all flowering plants (angiosperms ...

and

troff troff (), short for "typesetter roff", is the major component of a document processing system developed by Bell Labs for the Unix operating system. troff and the related nroff were both developed from the original roff. While nroff was inte ...

. MakeIndex was written around the year 1986 by Pehong Chen in the

C programming language ''The C Programming Language'' (sometimes termed ''K&R'', after its authors' initials) is a computer programming book written by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie, the latter of whom originally designed and implemented the language, as well a ...

and is

free software Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, n ...

. Six pages of documentation titled "MakeIndex: An Index Processor for LaTeX" by

Leslie Lamport Leslie B. Lamport (born February 7, 1941 in Brooklyn) is an American computer scientist and mathematician. Lamport is best known for his seminal work in distributed systems, and as the initial developer of the document preparation system LaTeX an ...

are available on the web and dated "17 February 1987."

References

* Wikibooks: '' LaTeX/Indexing'' * Pehong Chen and Michael A. Harrison:
Index preparation and processing
' (distributed with MakeIndex) *

:
MakeIndex: an index processor for LaTeX
' * Frank Mittelbach et al., ''The LaTeX Companion, Addison-Wesley Professional, 2nd edition'', 2004, {{ISBN, 0-201-36299-6 Free software programmed in C Free TeX software Troff Index (publishing)

See also

References