Is there a way to build an index in my InDesign document?

Yes!

With CatBase it's easy to create an index or bibliography in your Adobe InDesign document. There are just two steps:

1. Tell CatBase which field you want the index built on
2. After you've finalised your layout in the InDesign document, build the index

1. Tell CatBase which field you want to index

Let's say that you have a field code Code in your database. This field contains a unique product code, or URN, or product ID, or whatever you wish to call it. You would like to have an index to these product codes at the end of your catalogue (or price list, etc.)

1. Open up your Publishing Style Sheet in CatBase
2. Find the Element that contains the field you want to index (Code, in this example) and open that Element
3. Click on the Preferences tab
4. Select the Index this Element check box within the Options area
5. Save it

2. Build the index

After you have published the data and imported it into your InDesign document, open the Index palette (from the Window menu, choose Type & Tables -> Index).You should see lots of index entries listed in the Index window.

Make any necessary changes to your document. When it's finished, you're ready to create your index.

1. Go to the page where you want to place the index
2. In the Index, click on the Generate Index button at the bottom of the window
3. An options dialog opens. Generally, you can probably leave most of the options as they are; refer to your InDesign documentation for more information about this dialog. One thing you may want to change is the Following Topic Entry separator. This is the character that will separate the index text from the page number - you might want to choose a Tab character here so that all the page numbers line up nicely on the right of the column. To do this, click on the arrow next to the Following Topic field and choose Tab character from the pop-up menu.
4. InDesign builds the index and when it's done, you will see a "loaded" cursor
5. Click where you want to place the index (in the text box on the page, probably)
6. Your index is created

For more information about building indexes, please refer to your InDesign documentation.