Comments on: Bringhurst on Building Endnotes in CS4

By: Andreas Stötzner

Andreas Stötzner — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 12:24:43 +0000

I don’t know if you folks have a solution for this problem:
A Word document gets placed in InDesign, the text running over many pages. It is science, there are many annotations handled as generic footnotes; InDesign does import this correctly so that the footnotes take place dynamically at bottom of each page. So far OK.
But now to the main text, where the annotation reference numbers apper. These numbers employ the basic figures (0030 … 0039 by encoding) and renders them diminished and vertically shifted. This looks bad. I would like to set the genuin superscript figures of the font instead (00B2, 00B3, 00B9 and 2074 … 2079 by encoding) because that looks far better. But if I change the character in the main text – the link breaks and the footnote disappears.
– any solution?

By: Ann Camilla

Ann Camilla — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 15:19:59 +0000

Thank you again, Peter. This is brilliant.

By: Phil Frank

Phil Frank — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 12:01:56 +0000

Thank you, Peter. This will not be the first of your scripts I have found very helpful, not to mention your piece on GREP in InDesign.

By: Peter Kahrel

Peter Kahrel — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 00:48:16 +0000

A great tip. Here’s a script that implements it: http://www.kahrel.plus.com/indesign/foot_to_end.html

The script converts all footnotes in a document to endnotes using the endnote method described by Peter G., Bob, and David.

By: Klaus Nordby

Klaus Nordby — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 23:41:23 +0000

Thanks, Bob, that will lessen the pain a bit! But of course, we all know what we want in CS5 in this regard . . .

By: Bob Bringhurst

Bob Bringhurst — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 22:04:45 +0000

If you have dozens of endnotes, you can try this. Type or paste all the endnotes at the end of the document. Create one cross-reference using the workaround method, and then copy and paste that hyperlink to the other locations in the document. Then, select them one by one and double-click the hyperlink in the Hyperlinks panel (Window > Interactive > Hyperlinks). You can then simply click the appropriate endnote for that section, click OK, and the number is updated.

It’s not exactly “simple and elegant,” but it’s not bad for a workaround.

By: David Blatner

David Blatner — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 21:01:17 +0000

@Klaus: Simple and elegant doesn’t mean that it’s fast. But it doesn’t seem like that big of a deal as long as you don’t have dozens or hundreds of them. After you type (paste, import, whatever) the endnotes, you just just place the cursor in the text, click Add Cross Reference, choose the para style, click the one you want to reference and click OK. It goes pretty quickly.

The most frustrating thing is that you have to use the mouse to click on the styles and in the list of paragraphs. I wish you could navigate that dialog box entirely by kbsc.

By: Klaus Nordby

Klaus Nordby — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 18:35:05 +0000

@David: “It’s a very simple and elegant solution.” I tried this route now, and I’m sorry, I can’t agree — it’s slow and fiddly. I have to deal with setting all those parameters in that for EVERY footnote I want referenced inside that Cross References window? “Simple and elegant?” Please tell me I am stupid and have totally misunderstood this (apparent) Rube Goldberg route.

By: Klaus Nordby

Klaus Nordby — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 14:38:18 +0000

Thank you, David, this might save my bacon on an upcoming project! The no-endnotes situation in InDesign is a terrible shortcoming. My great old DOS word processor XyWrite had fine a footnotes/endnotes function — back in 1987 — which I used a lot for many years.

By: Eugene

Eugene — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 13:21:10 +0000

I sort out the footnotes and endnotes in Word and then import the text to indesign.

The ability to make endnotes to footnotes and vice versa in Word is neato.

I don’t like indesign footnotes and I use them a lot.

I like how you can style them and make them look and all that, but it needs sprucing up big time.

I like the tip of the cross-reference to make endnotes though.

Any thoughts on this working to make footnotes that span columns?