Script for chapter margin note number collating

> I could try to modify his code - but I'm replying from my phone so maybe later.

Why bother with my code if you have your tool? 'Leaving in Robert's hands' included your tool, not someone else's script.

The script I posted worked fine on the sample you provided. Given that the file that you used it on is different I'm not surprised that there are some problems. E.g. unattached sidenotes; these are easy to deal with.

The notes use InDesign's paragraph numbering, so numbering can be restarted at any point, and formatting such as the space between note number and text (and any punctuation after the number) can be specified in the paragraph style used for the notes.

Anyway, there's no point two people dealing with this, so I leave you in Robert's hands.

> So I must settle on one paragrah style, but again, justification varies according to a complex pattern, so I'm not quite sure how that gets to become a single paragraph style when always needing to vary the justification — will that obstruct the script?

Settle on a single paragraph style before you run the script that applies the automatic numbering. Once that's done you can apply the paragraph style with the different justification. (It's not necessary to apply that style in the notes, the script does that, using the style name you provide in the script as outlined earlier.)

If you can formulate a rule for how and where that second style should be applied, a script can be done for that. If it depends on the sidedness of the page (recto or verso) or on the position of the note relative to the main text, then it's a simple operation.

> Most of my placeholder superscripted reference numbers in the actual document are just "0s" for now, but I understand that the script, to run correctly, needs that anchor to be located just after the superscripted reference number in the body text. That's the first thing to to do. 

No: the script looks for superscripted numbers, and since zeros are numbers the script will find them. And since the script doesn't care what those numbers are it doesn't matter whether all or some are 0 or whatever number. That is, the script doesn't try to match cue numbers and note numbers.

Also, the script doesn't require the anchor and the superscript number to be in a particular order, or indeed to be adjacent. The automatic number is inserted at the anchor's position. In fact, the script doesn't use the superscripted numbers. It just deletes them.

Yes and no, Rob. Keeping the sidenotes in their frames and only apply automatic numbering can be handled by a variant of the script that converts footnotes to sidenotes. The paragraph style applied to the first paragraph in each note frame gets an automatic paragraph number, you set a paragraph destination in the first paragraph of a note frame, and create a cross-reference which will be the note reference. The inconsistency in the order of anchor and manual order is still no problem here.

Symbols are a problem in this approach because automatic paragraph numbers don't do symbols, so those two chapters should be handled separately. Typothalamus mentioned he doesn't mind doing that manually.

Anyway, here's the script to automate the numbering in the sidenotes. As I mentioned, it's a variant of the script that converts footnotes to sidenotes (https://creativepro.com/files/kahrel/indesign/sidenotes.html).

@Typothalamus -- Ignore the earlier script. As Robert and Rob pointed out I misread your post. Not to worry, here's a script that automates the numbering in your documents. Symbol-cues aren't handled.

Your document contains four Sidenote paragraph styles. In order to get automatic numberiung to work you can use just one. Indictae which one should be used in the second line in the script.

To see how you can add sidenotes and how the numbering is set up, check this page:

https://creativepro.com/files/kahrel/indesign/sidenotes.html

(function () {
  
  var noteReferenceStyle = 'Sidenote reference';
  var noteStyle = 'Sidenote 8.6p 12.5l';
  
  var indd = app.documents.item(0);
  var sidenotes;
  var destination;
  var reference;
  
  
  // Delete the original (manual) cues
  function deleteReferences () {
    app.findGrepPreferences = null;
    app.findGrepPreferences.findWhat = '\\d+';
    app.findGrepPreferences.position = Position.SUPERSCRIPT;
    app.findGrepPreferences.appliedCharacterStyle = 
      indd.characterStyles[0];
    indd.changeGrep();
  }

  // Return all anchored frames.
  // Make sure they're footnotes
  
  function findNotes () {
    var a = [];
    var frame;
    app.findGrepPreferences = null;
    app.findGrepPreferences.findWhat = '~a';
    var s = indd.findGrep();
    // Set up a grep for the note number
    app.findGrepPreferences.findWhat = '^[\\d\\s\\.]+';
    for (var i = 0; i < s.length; i++) {
      frame = s[i].textFrames[0];
      if (/^Sidenote/.test (frame.characters[0].appliedParagraphStyle.name)) {
        // Delete the manual number
        frame.parentStory.changeGrep();
        if (frame.parentStory.appliedParagraphStyle.name !== noteStyle) {
          frame.parentStory.applyParagraphStyle (indd.paragraphStyles.item(noteStyle), false);
        }
        if (frame.parentStory.paragraphs.length > 1) {
          frame.parentStory.paragraphs.itemByRange(1,-1).
            applyParagraphStyle (indd.paragraphStyles.item(noteStyle + ' no number', false));
        }
        a.push (frame);
      }
    }
    return a;
  }


  function checkCharacterStyle () {
    var s = indd.characterStyles.item (noteReferenceStyle);
    if (!s.isValid) {
      s = indd.characterStyles.add ({
        name: noteReferenceStyle,
        position: Position.SUPERSCRIPT,
      });
    }
    return s;
  }

  // Create a cross-ref format
  function xrefFormat () {
    var cr = indd.crossReferenceFormats.item ('Sidenote');
    if (!cr.isValid) {
      cr = indd.crossReferenceFormats.add ({
        name: 'Sidenote',
        appliedCharacterStyle: checkCharacterStyle(),
      });
      cr.buildingBlocks.add (BuildingBlockTypes.PARAGRAPH_NUMBER_BUILDING_BLOCK);
    }
    return cr;
  }


  // Duplicate the note paragraph style,
  // change the note style to numbered

  function fixNoteStyle () {
    
    function sidenoteNumberStyle () {
      var s = indd.characterStyles.item ('Sidenote number');
      if (!s.isValid) {
        s = indd.characterStyles.add ({
          name: 'Sidenote number',
        });
      }
      return s;
    }

    function numberedlist () {
      var numlist = indd.numberingLists.item ('Sidenote');
      if (!numlist.isValid) {
        numlist = indd.numberingLists.add ({
          name: 'Sidenote',
          continueNumbersAcrossStories: true,
          continueNumbersAcrossDocuments: true,
        });
      }
      return numlist;
    }

    var nonumber = indd.paragraphStyles.item(noteStyle).duplicate();
    nonumber.name = noteStyle + ' no number';
  
    indd.paragraphStyles.item(noteStyle).properties = {
      appliedNumberingList: numberedlist(),
      bulletsAndNumberingListType: ListType.NUMBERED_LIST,
      tabList: [{position: '12pt', alignment: TabStopAlignment.LEFT_ALIGN}],
      numberingCharacterStyle: sidenoteNumberStyle(),
    }
  
  }

  deleteReferences();
  fixNoteStyle();
  
  // Autonumber the sidenotes

  sidenotes = findNotes();
  for (var i = sidenotes.length-1; i >= 0; i--) {
    destination = indd.paragraphDestinations.add (sidenotes[i].insertionPoints[0]);
    reference = indd.crossReferenceSources.add (
      sidenotes[i].parent.insertionPoints[0], 
      xrefFormat()
    );
    indd.hyperlinks.add (reference, destination, {visible: false});
  }
  indd.crossReferenceSources.everyItem().update()

}());

@Robert at ID-Tasker :

> Anchor point is in the wrong place - part of the word before - instead of after the number and superscripted - so dedicated script would fail 

Depends on your approach. The script below searches an anchor,  inserts a note, and removes the anchor and the remaining superscript, so the order of the manual reference and the anchor doesn't matter. But in your approach you can simply search for both orders. The realities of life. Also goes for the space after the number: in this sample document that can be an ordinary space or a third-space.

@Typothalamus 

Below is a script to convert notes. It deals with symbol-cued notes as well. It creates a character style for the note cues and sets it in the footnote preferences (makes life easier for you and for me). The style's name is 'Footnote reference' -- if you want to use another name you can change it in the script (scripts are plain-text files).

As to the symbols, please check whether all symbols are accounted for in the script. I added only InDesign's default symbols (which you can't change). After the conversion of a symbol-cued document you'll need to set symbols as the numbering style in the footnote options.

Since you have 47 documents to convert, you can use this script to do the lot in one go:

https://creativepro.com/files/kahrel/indesign/batch_convert.html

(function () {
  
  var footnoteReferenceStyle = 'Footnote reference';
  
  // Return all anchored frames.
  // Make sure they're footnotes
  
  function findNotes () {
    var a = [];
    var frame;
    app.findGrepPreferences = null;
    app.findGrepPreferences.findWhat = '~a';
    var s = app.activeDocument.findGrep();
    app.findGrepPreferences.findWhat = '^[\\d\\*†‡§¶\\s\\.]+';
    for (var i = 0; i < s.length; i++) {
      frame = s[i].textFrames[0];
      if (/^Sidenote/.test (frame.characters[0].appliedParagraphStyle.name)) {
        // Delete the manual number
        frame.parentStory.changeGrep();
        a.push (frame);
      }
    }
    return a;
  }


  function checkStyle () {
    var s = app.documents[0].characterStyles.item (footnoteReferenceStyle);
    if (!s.isValid) {
      s = app.documents[0].characterStyles.add ({
        name: footnoteReferenceStyle,
      });
    }
    return s;
  }


  // Convert the sidenotes to footnotes
  
  var fn;
  var sidenotes = findNotes();
  for (var i = sidenotes.length-1; i >= 0; i--) {
    fn = sidenotes[i].parent.insertionPoints[-1].footnotes.add();
    sidenotes[i].texts[0].move (LocationOptions.AFTER, fn.insertionPoints[-1]);
    sidenotes[i].remove();
  }

  // Add and set a style for the cues
  
  app.documents[0].footnoteOptions.footnoteMarkerStyle = checkStyle();

  // Delete the original (manual) cues
  
  app.findGrepPreferences = null;
  app.findGrepPreferences.position = Position.SUPERSCRIPT;
  app.findGrepPreferences.appliedCharacterStyle = 
    app.activeDocument.characterStyles[0];
  app.activeDocument.changeGrep();

}());

Looks like those notes can be converted by a slight variant of an existing script. Could you post one chapter with Arabic note numbers and one with symbols?

In principle it should be straightforward, but it depends on whether the note references and the note numbers (or the notes) can be found unambiguously. Are the note references in a dedicated character style? If they aren't, is there something else that sets them apart from every else? For example, if they're superscripted, are they the only superscript numbers in the document? As to the notes, are they in a dedicated paragraph style? Or in text frames that can be found?