Scripture Index

Add an index of scripture references with Insert → Scripture Index in the chapter list. It goes in the back matter, alongside the Index rather than inside it.

Unlike the general index, there is nothing to build and nothing to tag. Inkwell reads the references out of your prose every time it renders the book, so the index is complete the moment you insert it, and it stays correct as you write — add a citation to a chapter and it appears; delete the sentence and it goes away.

Inkwell only looks for references once you have added the section. Adding it nudges the typesetting a little: each reference becomes a marker in the text, and the spacing on lines that contain one is adjusted very slightly to absorb it. Lines break in the same places and words move by well under a hundredth of an inch, so you are unlikely to see it — but it is a real change to the printed pages, which is why nothing happens until you ask for the index.

Opening the section shows you what the index currently contains. Page numbers appear once the book has been rendered, since that is the only way to know what page anything landed on.

How it is arranged

Entries are grouped by book of the Bible and ordered by the canon — Genesis through Revelation — not alphabetically. Within a book, references are in scriptural order, so 3:1 comes before 3:15, and a reference to the whole of chapter 3 comes before both.

The reference and its page numbers sit in two columns, with the page numbers of every entry in the index starting at the same place. Both are runs of numbers, and a reader who met them as one list — 1:1, 45, 67 — would have to work out where the verse ended and the pages began.

A reference cited many times is one entry with many page numbers. References inside footnotes are indexed too, and are listed by the page the note is on. They carry no 56n1 note marker: unlike a topical entry, a scripture reference is already a pair of numbers, and a third pair beside it reads as more reference. A verse you cite in the text and again in a note on the same page therefore appears once.

What Inkwell recognises

Full book names and the common abbreviations, with or without a trailing period:

• John 3:16
• Gen. 3:15
• 1 Cor 13:4–7 — ranges, whether you typed a hyphen or an en dash
• Genesis 1:1–2:4 — ranges that cross a chapter
• Psalm 23 — a whole chapter, with no verse
• Mark 3:1ff — indexed as 3:1
• John 3:16a — verse sections are kept

Matching is case-sensitive, which is what keeps ordinary sentences like "the genesis of the idea" out of your index.

What it will miss

A few things are worth knowing before you rely on it:

• References broken up by formatting. If the book name is italic and the numbers are not, Inkwell sees two separate pieces of text and finds nothing. Format the whole reference the same way.
• Chained references. In Genesis 1:1; 2:4 only the first is indexed. Write the book name out again — Genesis 1:1; Genesis 2:4 — if you want both.
• Unusual abbreviations. 1 Jn, Mt and similar short forms are not in the list Inkwell matches against. Spell the book out, or use the longer abbreviation.

Watch for over-matching

Because a chapter number alone is enough, an ordinary sentence that pairs a book name with a number will be indexed: "Numbers 3 was fine", "Job 1 of the series", "Mark 3 items". If your book uses those words in that way, check the index before you publish.