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TdeV1
TdeV1
Inspiring
October 29, 2010
Answered

Footnotes on page

  • October 29, 2010
  • 3 replies
  • 702 views

I have a heavily footnoted document. On page one, the footnotes go to #9 but the footnote area at the bottom of the page only goes up to #7 pushing the others to page 2. The footnotes on page 2 have been redistributed to page 3 where there is no longer any text.

How do I get the text to flow to other pages so that the footnotes appear (mostly) on the page which they occur?

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer Arnis Gubins

    This is another long-standing area of weakness for FM. The footnotes behaviour is not well-controlled when there are many per page, as you are seeing. It's sometimes less frustrating to convert the footnotes to endnotes (i.e. make cross-references instead of using FM's built-in Footnote tool). Alternatively, creative editing and copy-fitting are needed to lessen the number and/or length of individual footnotes falling on any one page.

    Another, but more risky (i.e. maintenance issues when updating the documents) is to do the footnotes manually using cross-refs and a manually-sized secondary text frame at the bottom of the respective pages. This creates a substantial number of page overrides, but it may give you the control that you need. If the documentation is frequently updated, then I wouldn't readily recommend this approach.

    3 replies

    A
    Anonymous
    October 31, 2010

    Rather than adjusting the text frame on each page individually in order to force the specific line of text that I want to break (along with the with footnote anchor), to the next page, I insert single-cell tables in the last text line that I want to appear on the page and then adjust the height of the cell to the appropriate size for each page, usually a multiple of the page's grid or main text leading settings. I create a named table style that's got the desired space above/below, so as to minimize phutzing as much as possible.

    I find this much easier to manage as compared to resizing the text frame because the cells are so easily visible and removable in case of editing, whereas having to reapply master pages can lead to inadvertently having pages that are just slightly varying from the master page, for some other valid design reason, get blown away when one is concentrating only on footnote placement, or forgetting to reapply master pages during late-stage editing.

    Michael_Müller-Hillebrand
    Michael_Müller-Hillebrand
    Legend
    October 31, 2010

    BestScenes,

    I will not start a discussion about the usefulness of footnotes (mainly present in documents which seems to hide the best information in small print at the bottom of the pages), but FrameMaker is not very flexible in this domain.

    The first approach you might want to test is found at Format > Document > Footnote Properties, you can increase the Maximum Height Per Column to increase the likeliness of having all footnote on page.

    The most flexible approach would be two text flows on each page, one for text, the other for footnotes, you could go ahead an manually adjust the text frame height as it fits your material. The linking would be by cross-references.

    The best approach would be to not use footnotes, but this is my personal opinion, and of course I don’t know your requirements. ;-)

    - Michael

    Arnis Gubins
    Arnis GubinsCorrect answer
    Inspiring
    October 30, 2010

    This is another long-standing area of weakness for FM. The footnotes behaviour is not well-controlled when there are many per page, as you are seeing. It's sometimes less frustrating to convert the footnotes to endnotes (i.e. make cross-references instead of using FM's built-in Footnote tool). Alternatively, creative editing and copy-fitting are needed to lessen the number and/or length of individual footnotes falling on any one page.

    Another, but more risky (i.e. maintenance issues when updating the documents) is to do the footnotes manually using cross-refs and a manually-sized secondary text frame at the bottom of the respective pages. This creates a substantial number of page overrides, but it may give you the control that you need. If the documentation is frequently updated, then I wouldn't readily recommend this approach.

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