RefTeX maintains a file in which phrases can be collected for
later indexing. The file is located in the same directory as the master
file of the document and has the extension .rip (Reftex
Index Phrases). You can create or visit the file with C-c
| (reftex-index-visit-phrases-buffer). If the file is empty it
is initialized by inserting a file header which contains the definition
of the available index macros. This list is initialized from
reftex-index-macros (see Defining Index Macros). You can
edit the header as needed, but if you define new LaTeX indexing macros,
don’t forget to add them to reftex-index-macros as well. Here is
a phrase file header example:
% -*- mode: reftex-index-phrases -*-
% Key Macro Format Repeat
%----------------------------------------------------------
>>>INDEX_MACRO_DEFINITION: i \index{%s} t
>>>INDEX_MACRO_DEFINITION: I \index*{%s} nil
>>>INDEX_MACRO_DEFINITION: g \glossary{%s} t
>>>INDEX_MACRO_DEFINITION: n \index*[name]{%s} nil
%----------------------------------------------------------
The macro definition lines consist of a unique letter identifying a
macro, a format string and the repeat flag, all separated by
TAB. The format string shows how the macro is to be applied, the
‘%s’ will be replaced with the index entry. The repeat flag
indicates if word is indexed by the macro as
‘\index{word}’ (repeat = nil) or as
‘\index{word}word’ (repeat = t). In the
above example it is assumed that the macro \index*{word}
already typesets its argument in the text, so that it is unnecessary to
repeat word outside the macro.