Jump Between Footnote and Number
I love being able to add footnotes in CS2 — I just click where I want a footnote and choose Type > Insert Footnote. The footnote text appears at the bottom of the text. I know that I’ll get 10 comments about how
the footnote feature is limited and doesn’t do everything it should (such as the fact that you can’t make a footnote straddle two columns of text)… I know that, but for most footnotes in most documents, I think it works pretty well.
However, when using footnotes, I often need to toggle between editing the body text and the footnote text and it’s annoying having to click back and forth. Well, when your cursor is in the footnote text, you can choose Type > Go to Footnote Reference to jump back up to where the footnote number is in the body text. But I know of no way to jump down to a footnote reference automatically. Instead, press Command/Ctrl-Y to open the Story Editor window. In this window the text and the footnotes are all “in line” so it’s really easy to edit both.
Footnotes in Story Editor
If you’re in Story Editor view and you don’t want to see all the footnote text, choose View > Story Editor > Collapse All Footnotes. Or you can just click on one of the boxes on either side of the footnote.
Love that Story Editor! XML Tags are also much easier to see there.
Little tiplet … David said,
If you assign a keyboard shortcut to Insert Footnote (Product Area: Type menu), the same shortcut will toggle your cursor position. Press it once in the body text, it inserts a footnote. Press it again in the footnote, it jumps to the footnote reference in the body text.
What it can’t do is the one thing you describe, it can’t jump from the footnote reference in the body text to the footnote that belongs to it.
Interestingly, Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts doesn’t list Go to Footnote Reference as an available command; that is, not unless your type cursor is blinking in a footnote. Then you see it appear. It’s totally dependent on what the Type menu is currently showing. (The Type menu only lists Insert Footnote, unless your cursor’s already in a footnote, in which case the command is replaced by Go to Footnote Reference.)
I first read about this in the chapter about the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland…
I have unfortunately discovered that if my editor inserts a note at the footnote number/symbol or changes the footnote number/symbol in InCopy, all the text between the symbol and including the footnote disappears.
I have trouble importing MS Word documents containing footnotes, into Indesign, and retaining the footnotes into their respective pages automatically. Indesign converts the footnotes into endnotes!
Fraternus, are you using InDesign CS2? Footnotes are a CS2 feature, but don’t exist in CS.
In footnote options for document, is there any way to use custom style for numbering instead of using predefined styles?.
hi there,
Footnote, everyone is talking about them, we can alos see a video about it on you tube… I’ve got design CS3, and i don’t have footnote, i try to import tham form word, doesn’t work.. and it’s hard to translate the explanation into french ( not the same meaning sometimes)… so could you help me please, to make them work in my computer ?
thank you,
kind regards,
gaelle
The Ctrl + Y command is brilliant! I’ve never seen it before!
Can anybody instruct me on how to modify footnote separators (lines or strokes) in indesign documents, especialy for msword documents imported into indesign?
Fraternus: Try going to Type > Document Footnote Options, then clicking the Layout tab at the top.
Can anyone tell me if you can insert footnotes into table cells. I’ve imported a word doc into INDCS3 that has footnotes in tables. Indesign takes them out of the document flow and puts them at the end.
David S: No, I don’t think you can. That’s a major problem for a number of people I’ve heard from.
Did you find your way Gaelle?
The story editor window command doesn’t work in a French version of InDesign, sadly, I am waiting to get home to test this out. But the foot note works:
Texte > options de note de bas de page de document; and it works, you can, from there set the options of how you want it to appear.
Hi, is there a way to move all the footnotes to the end of a chapter or a book, so they are not sitting at the bottom of every page? Thanks
Francisco: No, I’m sorry, but there are no endnotes in ID — only bottom of frame footnotes.
Is there any way to place footnotes somewhere else within the same page, against the automatic bottom placement?.
I would like to place them in a different column trying to match the vertical position of the footnote number in the text, I would really apreciate any help,
thank you very much,
Ronan
Ronan: Nope. Not really. Sorry!
What program can one use if a book layout needs endnotes?
Can it be done in MS-Word or Pages and then imported into InDesign? or would the endnotes be converted to footnotes? Or, worse, dissapear altogether?
It looks like Virginia Systems makes a plug-in that does endnotes.
Do you know if it is possible to position footnotes in CS3 without a paragraph break between each footnote, what I would call an “inline” style footnote?
No, I don’t think there is any way to do “inline” footnotes. There are many formatting limitations in CS3. Definitely email Adobe and tell them what you want for CS4!
How do you deal with a footnote reference that comes at or near the end of the page, such that the footnote itslef forces the text containing the reference to the next page? I ewnd up with a footnote on the page just before the page on which the footnote reference is found. Looks bad and strange, but I can’t seem to move the footnote to the next page.
Robert, I have never seen a footnote appear on the column before the reference, like you’re describing. I wonder if the Split Footnote feature (in the Layout tab of the Type > Document Footnote Options feature) would help.
There is a workaround to that problem of footnotes not staddling a number of columns. Say you have a 2 column document and the footnote is appearing at the bottom of the second column, then just stretch that column across the whole page and apply a text wrap to the other column. Obviously you have to make the first column shorter than the second and make the right offset the same as the gutter.
What do you mean ?
Music, I agree: I never understood Jon’s explanation. But it sounded good!
Hi Everyone! I’m importing text with footnotes from Word into InDesign CS2. I tried reformatting footnotes by going to Type > Document Footnote Options. However, I need the footnotes to be in their own textbox so that I can move them around the page / place them on the following page etc. Is there a way to do that in CS2 or CS3? thanks in advance.
hi margo, I am trying to do exactly the same thing, and from reading the previous replies on this page, it seems its impossible - annoying or what!
Hello, I imported a word.doc with footnotes, then cut and paste a few footnotes into a different textbox. But then it leaves small blue boxes at the bottom of the original footnotes. Is it possible to delete these boxes or shrink them? From reading the above it doesn’t seem as there is a way to cut and paste these boxes elsewhere?
Any ideas, help would be most gratefully appreciated. Thanks.
Baruch, are the “blue boxes” really there? If you go into Preview mode do they still show up? Seems like if you’re going to override the automatic footnote feature, you probably just want to delete the original footnote (in the text) and replace it with a manual character.
Thanks David, I guess this is how we’re going to go. But this document has nearly 1500 footnotes.
I just got off my knees, forehead against floor (literally) praying that there was a better way. 
Guess not, but… this does work. Thanks again!
When I replace the footnote number in the text with a manual number, InDesign automatically renumbers all the rest of the footnotes in a sequence of one less footnote. Is it possible to assign new numbering sequences to separate sections? I tried the page, spread, section commands but InDesign applies the same numbers for every page, spread, section throughout the document.
Is it possible to turn ALL the automatic footnote numbering off for the whole document?