Sometimes, indexes in master documents don't show chapter numbers when they're supposed to, or they refer to Chapter 0 rather than the correct numbers. You may have included chapter numbering in your subdocuments but not in your master document, or vice versa. It must be turned on in both locations. To do so, carry out these steps:
Insert Outline Numbering in each subdocument if it is not already present. (Choose Format, Bullets and Numbering, click the Outline Numbered tab, choose one of the available sequences, and click OK.)
Add chapter numbering to each subdocument, by choosing Insert, Page Numbers, and clicking Format to display the Page Number Format dialog box. (To do this, you must tell Word which style is used for chapter numbers throughout your document?a fairly complex procedure that is explained in the "Adding Chapter Numbers to Your Captions" section of Chapter 20, "Tables of Contents, Figures, Authorities, and Captions.")
Open the master document and click Expand Subdocuments to display all your subdocuments.
Choose Format, Bullets and Numbering, click the Outline Numbered tab, choose a heading numbering sequence for the master document, and click OK.
Rebuild the index.
Be sure to hide the hidden text in your document before building the index. Also, select the index and rebuild it (by pressing F9) after you create tables of contents and other document elements that affect page numbering.
For more information about using Outline Numbering throughout your documents, see "Using Word's Automatic Outline Numbering," p. 636.
If you change the formatting for an index entry, Word should update the formatting for all other entries that use the same style. If this doesn't happen, make sure that automatic style updating is turned on for this style. Follow these steps:
Choose Format, Styles and Formatting.
In the Styles and Formatting task pane, choose the style with which you're having problems. (If it does not appear, choose All Styles from the Show drop-down box.)
Right-click on the style name and choose Modify Style from the shortcut menu. The Modify Style dialog box opens.
Check the Automatically Update check box.
Click OK.
If you see the { INDEX } field Word inserted in your document instead of the results generated by that field, right-click on the { INDEX } field, and choose Toggle Field Codes from the shortcut menu.
First, check to see that the index entry has been marked properly. Then, check the following:
Is the spelling of the entry and subentry correct? (If not, the entry may appear incorrectly in the wrong location within your index.)
If you specified subentries, are they each separated by colons?
If you entered the field manually, is your field syntax correct? In particular, if the text in your index entry includes colons, did you add backslashes where needed, as discussed in the "Creating Subentries" section of this chapter?
If you marked an entry corresponding to a bookmark, has that bookmarked text since been removed from your document?
If you used an \f switch (such as \f "q") to specify that your { XE } index entry should appear only in a certain index, did you use the same \f switch in your { INDEX } field?
Does your index entry appear in a subdocument that isn't currently available to the master document where you've placed your index?