Bizarre bug: dynamic footnote jumps to middle of text frame

Forum|Forum|8 months ago
June 6, 2025
3 replies
1371 views

Please see screenshot.

What I did: I applied a paragraph style containing "split column" options to some text.

What happened: one of the several dynamic footnotes in the text frame jumped to above the multicolumn text. Only the note whose reference occurs before the multicolumn text moved.

What now: I am stuck with a renegade footnote in the middle of the text flow, separated from the other notes at the bottom. I can't get it to rejoin its friends.

What I wished had happened: Not this. Footnotes should stay at the foot of the page.

Thanks for any help.

Josh

Willi Adelberger

Community Expert

That is not a bug. Always when a different span column setting is applied, previous footnotes are above this paragraph. That is how it was designed.

joshualangmanAuthor

Participating Frequently

Hi WIlli.

If I may be so bold: why? Why was this choice made? Who wanted this behavior? It makes no sense to me, and apparently not to other book designers either.

If this is the desired behavior, shouldn't it have relevant settings in the document footnote settings dialog? There is nothing there about it.

Thanks,

Josh

Peter Kahrel

Community Expert

An old sore. Adobe insist it was designed that way, it's not a bug. Poor design you'll say, but there you are. If tou want it changed, join the crowds at https://indesign.uservoice.com

joshualangmanAuthor

Participating Frequently

Hi, Peter! Good to see your name here. (Not sure if you remember, but you wrote some scripts for me many years ago.)

How could this possibly not be a bug? Is this a known issue? I wasn't seeing anything specifically about it at Uservoice, but I did file a bug report.

Peter Kahrel

Community Expert

Hi Joshua. Yes, I do remember -- TextBank!

It is a known issue and was discussed at length some years ago with Adobe engineers but they decided that this was the way it was. It was then suggested to them that what non-engineers (people like you and me) thought should be the expected behaviour should at least be added as an alternative, but it didn't happen.