pagination of formats in an index

[Kevin Hunter]

hi all,
 
I'm trying to fine tune the appearance of an index, and finally got frustrated with my inability to figure something out for this apparently simple problem.
 
I have an index with two levels of entries, and for the pagination, the top level entry is set to 'keep with Next paragraph'. However, if I have several consecutive top level entries with no sub entries below them, and they coincide with the bottom of a column on my page, I can end up with several blank lines at the bottom of a column, because it's keeping them all in a block and sucking them up to the top of the next column. 
 
Like this:
 
Index Level 1
  Index Level 2
Index Level 1
Index Level 1
Index Level 1
Index Level 1
Index Level 1
  Index Level 2
 
In this scenario, if that block of level 1's was near the bottom of the column, to obey the 'keep with nxt paragraph', they go to the top of the next column, en masse. The reason I care about this now is that this particular index just happens to end up being slightly longer than an even number of pages, so I end up with just a couple of lines on my last page, followed by another blank page (to make the total even). So I was just looking for a way to optimize space in the other pages.
 
other considerations:
 - I want to keep a least the first level 2 with it's level 1 (ie, don't want a column that ends with a level 1, and it's sub items starting the next column)
 - but I don't want to set the level 2's to keep with previous, because in my index bodies I sometimes have very long lists of sub-items for one main item, so this problem would just be more pronounced.
 
Email me if you actually read this far, and the problem is still totally unclear....
 
Thanks in advance.
 
Kevin Hunter
BCD/ESDI