\documentclass{scrartcl} \makeatletter \def\theindex{% only for demonstration \section*{\indexname} \parskip\z@ \@plus .3\p@\relax \parindent\z@ \let\item\@idxitem} \makeatother %StartVisiblePreamble \usepackage{makeidx}\makeindex %StopVisiblePreamble \pagestyle{empty} \begin{document} \section{Escaping characters with >} \begin{itemize} \item Exclamation mark ! \index{exclaim (>!)} \item Vertical bar| \index{Vertical bar (>|)} \item Doublequote \verb|"| \index{>"} \item Double doublequote \verb|""| \index{>">"} \item At character @ \index{At (>@)} \end{itemize} Run \texttt{xindex} with \texttt{xindex -e ">"}\index{}\index{123} \newpage \printindex \end{document}