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Known Participant
August 5, 2008
Question

Footnotes in tables

  • August 5, 2008
  • 3 replies
  • 692 views
Is there any way to get FM8 to always place footnotes at the bottom of the page, even when the reference is in a table? Standard behaviour seems to place the footnote at the bottom of the table, which looks crazy if you are using tables with no cell borders to organize text on the page. The reader doesn't have to know you have used a table and would expect to find the footnote at the bottom of the page (which is why they are called footnotes - duh!).
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    3 replies

    frmageAuthor
    Known Participant
    August 7, 2008
    Thanks, Peter.
    I had realized that the workaround for multiple footnote references to the same footnote could be adapted to my question, but hoped there might be an easier way...
    Participating Frequently
    August 6, 2008
    If you won't be using the footnotes in PDFs as clickable navigation links, this might suffice:

    * Above or below the table, insert footnote markers at the end of a paragraph to create bottom-of-page footnotes. If there is more than one, insert a space between them, for ease of handling, if needed, in the future.
    * Create and apply a character format that sets the point size small, and the color to Paper, to these "misplaced" footnote references, so they're invisible. You might also want to apply a non-printing color.
    *Create a small font size and superscript character format; name it something like FakeRef.
    * In the appropriate table-cell positions, create a cross-reference to the appropriate Footnote paragraph. The cross-reference format should be: FakeRef<$paranumonly> to capture the footnote number and apply the FakeRef format that simulates an x-ref reference.

    This is essentially the same procedure that the Help describes for creating multiple in-text footnote references to the same footnote. Typically, it's something like "Numbers in thousands."

    The footnote numbers will increment or decrement correctly as footnote referencess are added, moved, or deleted in the text, but you'll need to update the cross-references to reflect the changed footnote numbers.

    HTH

    Regards,

    Peter Gold
    KnowHow ProServices
    Known Participant
    August 5, 2008
    Short answer: no.
    FM's footnote handling has always been under par.

    --
    /Thomas Michanek