Sometimes a Word document you get from someone else will have some strange characters that do not render correctly, either due to missing fonts or incompatible character encoding. Here’s how to find them and get rid of them.
Microsoft Word Index Entries Out of Order
If you’re Word 2000 index is out of alphabetical order, the culprit could be a semicolon in my the text of an index entry. If you do that, it throws a wrench in the works.