Fields
Every record has pieces of information in it. The technical term for these pieces is "fields" and that's how I'll refer to them throughout this document. Just remember that fields are pieces of a record.

In our format, we separate each field with a tab character. On your paper that's just a big space; on a computer you just hit the tab key. In order to make my examples as clear as possible, I'm going to make a tab character look like this: "[tab]". So a record with three fields will look like this:

Field #1 [tab] Field #2 [tab] Field #3

It's very important to put each field in the right spot, and we use the tabs to tell which field is which. If a field is blank, either just hit the tab key again, or put a single blank space and then hit the tab key. Either way is acceptable, as long as the number of tabs is the same as if there was information in that field.

It's crucial that you get each field in the right place because where a field appears determines what type of information is in the field. For instance, if you were to leave out one tab, you might be accidently indicate that Peter David inked a book instead of writing it.

Now that we've added fields, our simple index format looks like this:

Indexer Record Field #1 [tab] Field #2 [tab] Field #3
Series Record Field #1  [tab] Field #2 [tab] Field #3 [tab] Field #4

Cover Issue #1 Field #1 [tab] Field #2 [tab] Field #3 [tab] Field #4
Story #1 Field #1       [tab] Field #2 [tab] Field #3 [tab] Field #4
Cover Issue #2 Field #1 [tab] Field #2 [tab] Field #3 [tab] Field #4
Story #1 Field #1       [tab] Field #2 [tab] Field #3 [tab] Field #4

Remember, even if a field is blank, the tab needs to be there. If Field #3 is blank:

Field #1 [tab] Field #2 [tab] [tab] Field #4 [tab] Field #5