Technical writing: what is the difference between a document’s index and table of contents?

Question: what is the most important part of any technical manual?

Answer: would you believe that it is the INDEX?

Why? Because I don’t know of a single whitepaper user who doesn’t immediately turn to the Index and start looking for the words and terms that matter most to him.

And the feeling of frustration and disappointment is very real when the user cannot find an index on the back.

You should provide an index and get it right if you are writing a manual of more than 30 or 40 pages.

So how do you do it? What are the tricks of the trade?

First of all, make sure you understand the important difference between a TOC (table of contents) and an index. A TOC presents topics in the linear order in which the reader finds them in the book. It is a summary (and also useful) of “what comes after what topic”.

An index, on the other hand, is an ALPHABETICAL order of the IMPORTANT TERMS and CONCEPTS covered by the manual.

Therefore, without really understanding what the manual is about, you cannot write an index because you cannot determine what is important from the reader (or end-user) point of view.

That is why there are many professional indexers with their own organizations creating indexes as a full-time, lucrative profession.

However, there are no professional TOC creators as it is a mechanical compilation that is usually accomplished with the click of a “Create TOC” button.