End notes not importing in separate text box

[chorner11]

I've spent hours troubleshooting why suddenly the end notes are importing into the same text box and therefore not linked. I've converted my Word doc to .doc, tried selecting static. None of these "work-arounds" are solving the issue. Is this yet another new another Adobe bug? Thank you for your assistance.

[Abhishek Rao]

Hi @chorner11,

Thanks for reaching out, and I’m sorry to hear about the trouble with importing endnotes. To assist you better, could you please share the following details:

1. Your operating system and its version.

2. The version of InDesign you are using.

3. Since when has this issue been happening?

4. Have there been any recent changes to your system, such as installing new software or updates, that might be related to this issue?

To investigate further, could you share the affected file with us for testing? If the file is confidential, you can send it via DM through the community. Additionally, a screen recording demonstrating the issue would help us understand the behavior more clearly.

Looking forward to your response!

Best,
Abhishek Rao

[chorner11]

Hi, Abhishek,

Windows will not import End Notes in separate text box so they are hyperlinked. In other words, Indesign says there are no end notes. I've attached a sample portion of entire book manscript. I got the same problem when I tried to import just the first chapter in the sample I'm sending.

Windows 10 Home, Adobe 20.01.64, happened starting today. Usual Windows updates.

Thank you!

Christine

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Are you placing the Word file using the import options menu, and making sure the right endnote/footnote options are set?

[chorner11]

Thank you. Yes, I've tried from File > Place... in the top menu and shortcut Ctrl-D to import and end notes is checked. It imports entire doc into same text box.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Save the Word file as RTF. Open that and save under a new name as DOC and DOCX. Try placing any of those three, in that order.

[chorner11]

Thank you. I converted the .docx to .rtf. Then took that file and converted to .doc. Also converted .rtf to .docx. I tried all three files. The End Notes are still importing in with the manuscript in the same text box. This seems like an Adobe problem.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Well, that's the end of the easy answers. 🙂 Word and ID only play together grudgingly, and it doesn't take much on either end for glitches like this to both occur and resist fixes.

I'd have to see the file, or an equivalent dummy, to be very specfic with any other changes.

One final thought: this is from a genuine copy of Word, right? Word files from other apps like Google Docs and Pages are a whole different kettle of fish; they can play at being Word-compatible, but when you try to export or transform them, they often have problems like this. Just in case this is from a clone app, open and re-save the file in any reasonably recent copy of Word (but preferably not 365 unless that's all you have).

[chorner11]

I hear you. I quickly created a Word doc just now with a sentence with an endnote and tested it. I was able to import and it created the proper endnote separate box. That means you are correct in that the doc might not be Word original. I'll check with the author. I'm a professional book designer so I'll just let him know that the eBook won't have hyperlinked footnotes. The reason I was quicky to jump on Adobe is that I have a sizable situation with Photoshop that was confirmed to be a bug and won't be updated until next release.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Ah, you didn't say this was for EPUB export. That does spin all the issues another direction, although yes, you have to have working/correct notes in the source file to get proper results in the export.

For what it's worth, InDesign does not break at the footnote/endnote level very often, not on its own and not without getting the source file fairly well corrupted. (Thought: did you try exporting the ID file to IDML and re-opening that with a save to INDD again? Odds are slim, but that fix might correct the end note problem even if it originated with Word.)

But any time you import from Word, especially with complex formatting like end notes and footnotes (which, no, should not be "complex" in most senses), the odds of this kind of inexplicable fault and breakage go way, way up.

Try the IDML loop. Make sure the file comes to you from a real copy of Word, after an RTF cycle (e.g. save the original as RTF, open that in Real Word, save as RTF/DOC/DOCX, try again.) It's often just a matter of patiently ringing the changes.

[chorner11]

Actually, it will be paperback, then I use the same file and reprogram it for eBook, so the endnotes have to be correctly done in the paperback to avoid double work. I played in his Word doc and tried to add another endnote, it bounced to the bottom of his doc, bypassing existing endnotes, adding a divider line. The author did the endnotes incorrectly in Word from the get-go if he was indeed working in Word.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@chorner11 

Looks like those are Hyperlinks - not Endnotes:

And they import as Hyperlinks:

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

1. I overlooked the files attached above.
2. I think you're right; they are not evidently set up as "end notes" in the Word file, but some kind of custom/workaround hyperlinks.
3. That would answer the question...

[chorner11]

Yes! that's the error. Thanks for hanging with me.

[chorner11]

Bingo, Robert! I just played around and came to the same conclusion. 

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

It wouldn't be a big deal to convert them to real Endnotes 😉 

[chorner11]

There are 100 or so. I sent a note to the author that he'll have to do it.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

There are 100 or so. I sent a note to the author that he'll have to do it.

By @chorner11

I would never suggest a manual way 😉 

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

I salute you.

Too often, the next step in these discussions is how the designer can straighten out such authorial messes using brute force, indentured labor and under the same financial terms as for a proper, clean manuscript. I discourage that and take the opinion that the author can find someone else on Fiverr if they don't want to untangle their mess.

[chorner11]

I understand, but I'm not a Word designer, so I only know how to do what I know how to do. Thank you.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

I understand, but I'm not a Word designer, so I only know how to do what I know how to do. Thank you.

By @chorner11

Or you can send it back to the author - that's what you should do. 

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Oh. Okay.

Since Word is the submission format of about 99% of all authors, I'd consider reasonable technical mastery of Word features and formatting pretty essential for book production. As in this case, the problem cannot be (reasonably) resolved from any later stage, within ID or not, and identifying the difference in the technical format would have led to a solution.

But to each hir own, and all that. In any event, there is a tendency to make flaws in the source content in the designer's problem, even absurdities such as putting a hard return at the end of every line, or using some complex setup for footnotes, or the like. I disagree; it's the author's job to provide a 'press ready' source file or something close to it, or be willing to pay for someone downstream to fix it. It is not reasonable to expect a designer to expend over-and-above effort and time just getting an ms ready for import.