Double set of endnotes in bilingual book

Report · Oct 11, 2021

I'm laying out a bilingual book - English threaded text frames on all recto pages, Spanish threaded text frames on all verso pages. Text frames for each language are not in any way linked to text frames for the other language - they are separate "stories."

This is a scholarly book, and each language has its own set of footnotes, which the author has requested be set up as side-notes appearing in a sidebar frame. No problem - I brought in (placed) the text from Word with the footnotes coming in as endnotes, then linked the final text frame for each chapter back to page 1 of that chapter to a side-bar frame to receive the endnote text and just flowed the notes from page to page along the side, keeping the endnote text corresponding to where the references appear in the main text.

I did all of the English text and endnotes first (have only done one test chapter so far).

But when I went to bring in the Spanish text and its corresponding endnotes, the main body text came in fine as its own "story" threading through the verso pages, but the endnotes OVERWROTE THE ENGLISH NOTES rather than appear as endnotes in the threaded frames that carry the Spanish text (the main text came in fine - it's just the endnotes that jumped the tracks and landed over in the side-notes frames for the English version).

I'm beyond baffled. Does inDesign allow for multiple sets of endnotes/footnotes? Or do I have to do the second language's footnotes entirely by hand? (Copy and paste the endnotes from Word, then insert and also insert the number designations into the main text.) This is a large project - I'd like to avoid slitting my wrists over it.

I'm running inDesign 2021, Mac OS 11.4 (Big Sur), on a Macbook Pro.

Report · Oct 12, 2021

Hi Kathleen,

if you need two endnote bodies in the document you have to set endnotes options' scope to Story.

That should work. In the case of two different stories with threaded text frames each running side by side you should see two different endnote text frames for the endnote texts.

Note 1: Do not try to copy/paste endnote texts or endnote text frames.

Just move the frames ( not the texts ) through your document spreads if you want to position the endnote texts side by side to the text frames holding the endnote numbers.

Note 2: Before you place two different Word files provide threaded text frames on the pages, select the first insertion point of the first text frame and place your text to that selected insertion point. Repeat that with the second set of threaded frames for the other language.

To get to the cause of your issue one needs the two Word files plus your InDesign document where you see the problem for testing. You could put all the files on Dropbox or a similar service and post the download link if you need further assistance.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

Report · Oct 12, 2021

Mil, mil gracias - this solved the problem. I missed the "story" setting for the endnotes.