footnotes 101

[FieryPantone]

Haven't done much with footnotes before, and helpful tips from the forum have sorted out my questions with symbols and so on. Today's observation: I add a footnote (four or five words) in the last two lines of the body, and FM whisks it away to the next page. I think my preference would be for footnotes that show up on the same page as the footnote marker ... Hints and tips? thanks!

[Bob_Niland]

I add a footnote (four or five words) in the last two lines of the body, and FM whisks it away to the next page.

Unless there is a new feature in FM10, it has ever been thus. FM9 help says:
Adding text to a footnote may cause the last footnote in a column or on a page to move to the bottom of the next column or page. To reduce the chance of a footnote not fitting in a column, allocate more space for footnotes in a column.

If footnotes are sparse in the document, and are not being cataloged, a work-around hack would be to fake a footnote.

In the host paragraph, insert an anchored frame, "bottom of column". This frame behaves the way you would like footnotes to behave. It "keeps" on the same page as the host pgf.

Insert a text frame in the anchored frame.

Write the footnote text in the text frame. Apply a paragraph format named, say "FootNote.Frame" (but not "Footnote"). Give it an auto-number (it won't be possible to use the real footnote numbering sequence, as far as I know)*.

In the host paragraph insert a cross-reference named, say "FootNoteXref", to the footnote, formatted as superscript <$paranumonly>.

_______

* You could assign the next available real footnote number by creating an invisible real footnote nearby and Xref'ing to it by <$paranumonly>. But now we'd be escalating from hack to kludge. Disclaimer: this paragraph is not a real footnote.

[Bob_Niland]

it has ever been thus

Since the thread topic is "Footnotes 101", this keep-with problem also exists for Table Footnotes, but is often easier to work-around.

Use manual footnotes, as above, but put them in a borderless extra row at the bottom of the hosting table (or at any point in that table that keeps the footnotes on the desired page or in the desired column).

A further persistent issue is that footnotes and table footnotes don't use the same numbering sequence. This can be a benefit or a hazard. If it's a benefit, it's not my problem.

A monster hack to address all of these is to put all of the footnote content text on a Reference page, in auto-numbered paragraphs, and use Xrefs in the body to pick up the bottom-of-page displays and narrative indicators. End notes historically had to be done this way too, but that's apparently now a mostly-solved problem*.

________

* End note: now that I've looked at the FM9 & 10 Help, I'm not so sure the EN problem really is solved. It appears to merely document the long-standing hack.

[Barb Binder]

Or, I just explain to my clients that I will "fix" the footnotes on the final draft, and then let them fall where they may during edits. On the final draft, I will adjust the page breaks (ususally by adjusting the "Keep with" settings in Pagination properties) to ensure that my footnotes are on the same page as their references. Doing this too early will drive you nuts. The key to this approach is to be sure the client understands, and can wait until the final draft to see the corrected layout.

~Barb