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I want to reproduce an index written in proprietary format, doc. It uses weird indexing such as "Aa1", "Aa" and "A". I need indexing tools for doing unrestricted amount of sub-categories in index and with good index of the main index -- and some good visualizer would be useful. Each thing has information "INDEX|NAME|LOCATION|DESCRIPTION|YEAR-RANGE|STATUS", the "INDEX" is the thing that needs visual nesting. Also, it would be useful if I could select just one branch of the index for review later.

I want something like

A
  Aa Something
   helloe  1 si    description              1900-2001
   hallo   1 si    deutsch                  2000-2010
   ...
    Aaa1 Some books
      name   2 lo  descript                 1700-1800
      name1        no location, descr       1600-1700    LOST
      name2  1 di  descr                    1777-1888

  Bb
    Bb1
     Bbb
        Bbbb
            Bbbbb
              ...
                Bbbbb...b

The current indexing is a bit hard reading, it was created with some high-cost index specialist but I am unsure why it was created like that:

A SIGNS AND SYMBOLS

 Aa Letters

   Aaa1           1 lo        Explained                     1990-200

B CARDS AND HISTORY

 BI PEOPLE INDEX
  BIa Private
   BIa1  1 si   Explained book                             1800-1950
   BIa2  1 si   Some book                                  1888-1999
  BIb Public 
   BIb1         Something here                             2000-2001
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Have you met a limit in the standard way LaTeX processes indexes? – ℝaphink Aug 30 '11 at 21:52
@Raphink: not with LaTex but I have not tried to create this size index earlier, I have used "\chapter{...} ...\subchapter{...} \subsubchapter{...}" in papers and then something has created the index. Does it work the same way here? How can I keep the 3-4 vertical lines adjusted like above? Information is pretty much "INDEX|NAME|LOCATION|DESCRIPTION|YEAR-RANGE|STATUS". – hhh Aug 30 '11 at 21:58
when using \chapter, \section, etc., what you can generate is a table of contents, which is indeed usually limited in depth. An index is a different thing though. – ℝaphink Aug 31 '11 at 5:15
@Raphink: can you elaborate on it more? Like can I create the index in a similar way as table of contents? I am unsure how I should index to show the relative relationships, there are many sub-things -- currently just jammed up. Like suppose I would like to print the index of websites that has a massive amount of nodes and similar descriptive data as above, how can I index them? Someone must have wondered this issue earlier. – hhh Sep 2 '11 at 19:31
Comments are not meant to elaborate, but if you rephrase the question slightly, I can make it an answer. – ℝaphink Sep 2 '11 at 19:35
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1 Answer

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You cannot generate with existing tools in LaTeX an indew with more than 3 levels of categories.

A sub-sub-sub-entry is not possible, either with makeindex of xindy which are the two main indexing solutions to work with LaTeX.

In order to generate your index, you have probably to use a different solution, like, perhaps, a toc, which has also limitations, but less strict (7 levels in the toc).

In any case, an almost-unlimited number of levels is not possible with any automatic generation "tool" that I know of in LaTeX.

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