Question about setting up master pages for an Index

[Van Boening, Tammy]

A seriously senior moment here or it's just Friday and my brain has
already shut-off.

I am setting up the templates (Cover, TOC, LOF, LOT, Chapter, Appendix,
and Index) to use for our departmental end-user guides. Setting up the
templates for the TOC, LOF, and LOT are a snap; the index, however,  is
giving me fits and although I remember I did this once before, I can't
for the life of me remember how. I have a three column index with three
master pages - First, Right, and Left. Obviously, the First master page
must be applied to the first page of the index and I want the title
"Index" to appear on this page. Right now, my solution is to place the
autonumbered paragraph tag IndexHead in the header on the first master
page. The autonumbering is set to "Index" and I have it formatted the
way that I want it with font, bold, underline, etc. but the rub is when
I generate my TOC, I say to include the IndexHead and on the reference
page for the TOC, in the formatting of this TOC entry, I make sure to
use <$paranum>; however, because this IndexHead tag is used on the
master page, it's not being picked up automatically in the TOC; I would
have to manually add this to the TOC, which defeats the whole purpose of
the TOC. I cannot figure out for the life of me how to get the paragraph
tag on the first BODY page of the index without screwing up the
formatting of the index. Even if I use two separate text boxes with the
same flow (A) and connect the flow of the text box (a single column text
box above the three columns) that is to hold the title Index to the text
flow that is to hold the index entries (the three columns), the index
obviously is not formatted correctly. I get the first index entry
starting in the text box overlapping with the Indexhead paragraph tag.
For the TOC, etc. this isn't an issue, because they all are a single
column file, so after generation the first time, I simply put in a hard
return above the first line of the file and add the autonumbered tags of
TOCTitle, LOFTitle, and so on and I am good to go. 
 
I know I am doing something wrong, but I can't figure out for the life
of my what I am doing wrong. Is it the order that I connect the frames
in the Index or?

Thanks in advance,

TVB

Tammy L. Van Boening
Senior Technical Writer
Fiserv Insurance Solutions 
Property and Casualty Division
303-729-7733
tammy.vanboening at fiserv.com
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