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Tom Vavrusa
Participating Frequently
March 28, 2026
Question

Different footnote types

  • March 28, 2026
  • 1 reply
  • 26 views

Dear all,

I encountered one problem regarding footnotes in InDesign and hope you can help me with. I have a magazine with articless and in the beggining of each article is author´s name and short info what the article is about. The thing is that author has a footnote with * and info about article footnote with **

The article itself has a standard footnotes with numbers 1, 2, 3 etc. 

So I would like to know if there is any chance to combine * and numbers in footnotes on same page? I am wondering how to figure it out hoping that someone has a solution of this problem. I believe that InDesign has a feature how to deal with it.

Thank you very much for your help. 

    1 reply

    Barb Binder
    Community Expert
    Barb BinderCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    March 28, 2026

    We can't change numbering styles for notes, they are all symbols, or incrementing numbers or letters.

    I accomplish this with a cut/paste:

    •  Select and cut the * note text, leave the number at the beginning
    • Delete the 1 in the text and add a *. The footnotes now renumber from 1.
    • Click at the beginning of the 1 in the note at the bottom of the page, press enter, arrow up, type in the * and the spacer character and paste in the * note.

     

    ~Barb at Rocky Mountain Training
      T
      Tom VavrusaAuthor
      Participating Frequently
      March 28, 2026

      Dear Barb,

      Thank you very much for your reply. This works for * and then for 1, 2, 3…

      But if I want to replace note number 1 with ** the footnote which was originally * disappears, because it was on the same footnote line as number 1separated with “enter” 

      :(

      Barb Binder
      Community Expert
      Barb BinderCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      March 28, 2026

      Add them all as sequentially numbered notes, 1–infinity. Then repeat the process I showed above. For multiple-author bylines, mine might be 4-6 deep.

       

       

      If this isn’t quite what you need, please share screenshots or a sketch so that we can see where you are starting , and where you need to go.

      ~Barb at Rocky Mountain Training
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