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Here's an example. The book is about Wine in the world. Chapter 2 (say p20-50) is France. Within France, each region has a few pages. p25-30 covers Bordeaux, p30-35 covers Champagne, p36-40, Savoie p41-42. Within the Bordeaux section, it could even happen that the word "Bordeaux" is not mentioned on every page. But the pages are still about the subject of Bordeaux. The index should show: Bordeaux 25-30 Burgundy 36-40 Champagne 30-35 Savoie 41-42 It's not impossible that the Burgundy section might mention also Bordeaux, say on pages 37, 38 and 39. These should NOT be grouped, but should appear individually as they are separate mentions, even if they are on consecutive pages. For these the index should show: Bordeaux 37, 38, 39 Making overall for Bordeaux: Bordeaux 25-30, 37, 38, 39 As this is very much a basic, generic requirement of an index, the user should have a way to achieve this.

I just checked and InDesign has many options for page grouping: You can create index entries that include a page range (such as cats 82–87) instead of a single page number. The Type pop‑up menu in the New Page Reference dialog box includes the following page-range options: Current Page The page range does not extend beyond the current page. To Next Style Change The page range extends from the index marker to the next change of paragraph style. To Next Use Of Style The page range extends from the index marker to the page where the next occurrence of the paragraph style specified in the adjacent paragraph style pop‑up menu appears. To End Of Story The page range extends from the index marker to the end of the current thread of text frames that contain text. To End Of Document The page range extends from the index marker to the end of the document. To End Of Section The page range extends from the index marker to the end of the current section as defined in the Pages panel. (See Document numbering options.) For Next # Of Paragraphs The page range extends from the index marker to the end of the number of paragraphs specified in the adjacent box, or to the end of as many paragraphs as exist. For Next # Of Pages The page range extends from the index marker to the end of the number of pages specified in the adjacent box, or to the end of as many pages as exist. Suppress Page Range Turn off page range.

To me, this is a big difference: 1, 2 suggests two separate mentions 1-2 suggests text about the indexed topic continuing from one page to the next. I just checked the index of a book published elsewhere about a similar topic. For some entries, it contains entries of the form 1-2, for just two consecutive pages. I am just looking for a way to achieve something that is clearly used by other indexers, even if you would not use this option or like it.

When creating an index, the Index panel has an option Group page ranges, which when checked groups ranges of three or more consecutive page numbers (for example, pages 1,2,3,4 will become 1-4). Is there any way to group just two pages in the index, so for example, pages 1,2 will become 1-2?