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Participant
August 12, 2024
Answered

How Do I Count Footnotes?

  • August 12, 2024
  • 3 replies
  • 935 views

Hello,

I'm working on a book, and I need to find out how many footnotes I have. I hate to go through and count them all manually. Is there a place I can go to see how many footnotes the document has?

Correct answer Peter Kahrel

There isn't, but this one-liner tells you how many footnotes your document has:

 

alert ('Footnotes: ' + app.activeDocument.stories.everyItem().footnotes.length);

3 replies

Peter Kahrel
Community Expert
Community Expert
August 12, 2024

True, find/replace can often be used to count things. But single-paragraph footnotes don't have the paragraph character, so you'd have to go for another character. Which is pretty scary.

James Gifford—NitroPress
Legend
August 12, 2024

Okay, then. It works really well for most item counts. 😛

James Gifford—NitroPress
Legend
August 12, 2024

A quick script is always a good solution, but one I've used on-the-fly (for a book in which I need to know how many short encyclopedia-like entries there are, for example) is to do a search and replace for the paragraph character on a key style. My example has one "date" paragraph in each entry, so if I F/R for the return using that style, it gives me an exact count.

 

If you've (properly) used a defined Footnote style, the same hacky-trick should give you an accurate count.

 

Or, you know, you could use a script, too. 🙂

Peter Kahrel
Community Expert
Peter KahrelCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
Community Expert
August 12, 2024

There isn't, but this one-liner tells you how many footnotes your document has:

 

alert ('Footnotes: ' + app.activeDocument.stories.everyItem().footnotes.length);
Participant
May 19, 2025

How to use this script? I am beginner.

Rasto

Robert at ID-Tasker
Legend
May 19, 2025
quote

How to use this script? I am beginner.

Rasto


By @Furko1951

 

https://creativepro.com/how-to-install-scripts-in-indesign/