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Adrienne Grace
Adrienne Grace
Known Participant
August 10, 2022
Answered

Endnote links in multiple chapters from an InDesign book file for EPUB 3.0

  • August 10, 2022
  • 8 replies
  • 2868 views

Help! I'm ready to chuck my computer out the window!

I have a multi-chapter book created in a InDesign and many of the chapters have endnotes. Kindle requires endnotes (or footnotes) to be bi-directional links. These work fine in the first chapter, but subsequent chapters the links are broken. 

When I use eCanCrusher to open the xhtml files, I can see the backlink from the actual endnotes have an empty href. Why? How do I fix this without manually typing in every single link for the remaining 67 chapters?!? TIA.

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer Laubender

Hi @Adrienne Grace ,

you linked to a feature request.

However, what we can see with the EPUB export from a book file with endnotes is indeed a bug.

So I would do a bug report in category ePub/HTML/Publish Online:

https://indesign.uservoice.com/forums/601180-adobe-indesign-bugs?category_id=209104

 

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Professional )

8 replies

Adrienne Grace
Adrienne GraceAuthor
Known Participant
September 1, 2022

I created a bug ticket (thank you @Laubender for the suggestion). Please upvote it! https://bit.ly/3CQOsJm 

 

Thanks again everyone for all the testing, ideas, and suggestions. Love having the brains and experience of so many here to help wade through issues, even if there wasn't an immediate resolution.

    L
    Community Expert
    LaubenderCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    September 1, 2022

    Thanks, Adrienne!

    Commented and voted there.

     

    Regards,
    Uwe Laubender
    ( Adobe Community Professional )

    L
    Community Expert
    LaubenderCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
    Community Expert
    August 29, 2022

    Hi @Adrienne Grace ,

    you linked to a feature request.

    However, what we can see with the EPUB export from a book file with endnotes is indeed a bug.

    So I would do a bug report in category ePub/HTML/Publish Online:

    https://indesign.uservoice.com/forums/601180-adobe-indesign-bugs?category_id=209104

     

    Regards,
    Uwe Laubender
    ( Adobe Community Professional )

    Adrienne Grace
    Adrienne GraceAuthor
    Known Participant
    August 29, 2022

    The feature request link suggested by the Suport Tech, but you've got an excellent point, Uwe — it IS a bug! I'll create a ticket and, if it's something people can vote on, I'll put the link here.

    Adrienne Grace
    Adrienne GraceAuthor
    Known Participant
    August 29, 2022

    Follow up to my original post. I did a screen share session with an Adobe Tech Support person and only after nudging them did they even get back to me. The response:

     

    "We have shared the issue with the product team for further investigation.
    Currently, we do not have a workaround for this issue other than creating a single document instead of book or manually modifying backlink in the exported EPUB file."

     

    I replied requesting this feature request be worked on and it was requested back in 2020, so you can up-vote it here and add your comments: https://indesign.uservoice.com/forums/601021-adobe-indesign-feature-requests/suggestions/40385497-allow-for-setting-or-synchronizing-book-wide-footn 

     

    Was really hoping for better news. 😞

      James Gifford—NitroPress
      James Gifford—NitroPress
      Legend
      August 29, 2022

      Yes, as noted, end notes have a number of issues in ID, and have never really been properly integrated with Book structure.

       

      Both end notes and footnotes need improvement for EPUB export as well.

       

      —

      L
      Community Expert
      LaubenderCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      August 16, 2022

      @James Gifford—NitroPress said:

      "ETA: Just exported three sample chapters with endnotes. All exported to EPUB and in Kindle conversion, all links good."

       

      Hi James,

      I had the opposite experience.

       

      As we all three can see: All endnotes in the first chapter worked.

      Linking and also backlinking.

       

      In my case not so with the next chapter or another test with an additional third chapter.

      The strange thing: Some endnotes worked, some did not work with linking and backlinking.

      It was not an either or. Only in one case none of the endnotes after chapter 1 did not work. Both chapters after the first one had the same number of endnotes. Is this of significance?

       

      In one other case the first two endnotes in chapter 2 and 3 did not work, all others in the two chapters did.

      Tried to find a reason, thought, maybe it's the comma after the endnote number in the main text; but my next test with a different number of endnotes at different positions in the text proofed the contrary.

       

      I tested with InDesign 2022 version 17.3.0 on Windows. When I exported from the book file I always got a warning message on missing text anchors. From my German InDesign:

       

      "Text anchors not found: 16"

       

       

      Important Note:

      In all of my test cases linking and backlinking to endnotes worked when I exported to PDF with option "tagged PDF" enabled. That was the proof that principally the links and backlinks in the InDesign documents are all in order.

      Below my export options from the InDesign book file.

       

      EPUB Flexible Layout

      Version: EPUB 3.0

      Navigation TOC: File Name

      Contents:

      Order: Based on Page Layout

       

       

      Below also the option for Footnotes ("Fußnoten").

      I did "End of Section (Endnote)". Perhaps here is the issue?

      James, what are your export settings?

       

       

      Regards,
      Uwe Laubender
      ( Adobe Community Professional )

      L
      Community Expert
      LaubenderCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      August 16, 2022

      Download this case with 8 missing text anchors from my Dropbox account:

      https://www.dropbox.com/s/thfcjpdeyb7swp0/2022%20v3.zip?dl=1

       

       

      Regards,
      Uwe Laubender
      ( Adobe Community Professional )

      Adrienne Grace
      Adrienne GraceAuthor
      Known Participant
      August 18, 2022

      Hi Uwe,

       

      These are my exact export settings and I also experienced no issue with the links in PDF format. When I open the EPUB with eCanCrusher and look at the links and backlinks in all other chapters besides the first, the file name is missing in the links. (See my code screen captures in a previous reply here.)

       

      I am going to follow up with Adobe Help via Twitter today. They asked for my contact name and availability for a screen share, but I haven't heard from them beyond that. For now, I think I will need to fix all the links manually (which I think I can do in each file with find/change), or export each chapter individually and then assemble the book. 

       

      I'll report back to you when I hear from them and let you know what they say and recommend. And thanks again for all the help, suggestions, and testing you've done. It's been very helpful and lets me know it's not just some magic checkbox I've missed somewhere. Although, I would have preferred that simple solution! 😄

        L
        Community Expert
        LaubenderCommunity Expert
        Community Expert
        August 12, 2022

        @James Gifford—NitroPress said: "I rarely recommend this approach, but you might export each chapter independently and then build them into an EPUB structure. That may be less tedious than hand-editing 65 chapters."

         

        Well, yes. Perhaps way better than trying to assemble all parts of the book in one single document.

        Because that would mean that all texts with endnotes must run through one single story for each chapter.

         

        Regards,
        Uwe Laubender
        ( Adobe Community Professional )

        James Gifford—NitroPress
        James Gifford—NitroPress
        Legend
        August 13, 2022

        True, but I can't think of a really good solution here unless the reason the export is skipping chapters 2-n. It has to be some simple thing; without having the files to mess with I can't guess what.

         

        —

        L
        Community Expert
        LaubenderCommunity Expert
        Community Expert
        August 13, 2022

        @James Gifford—NitroPress said: "without having the files to mess with I can't guess what."

        True.

         

        Regards,
        Uwe Laubender
        ( Adobe Community Professional )

        Adrienne Grace
        Adrienne GraceAuthor
        Known Participant
        August 11, 2022

        Played around exporting the same file by itself and from the book — absolutely no other changes. Code from the single-file export links back-and-forth as expected and code shows that. This is the endnote in the text and I see the link:

         

         

        This is the endnote backlink, with expected code:

         

        I get the same results by exporting from a book file, as long as there are no other chapters with endnotes. Once I have more than 1 chapter with endnotes, I get "Text Anchor not found" errors on export:

        Sure enough, the href attributes are empty. This is the endnote itself:

         

         

         

        And the backlink is empty, as well.

         

         

        Endnote references are set up the exact same way in both my test chapters:

         

         

         

         

         

         

         

         

         

         

         

         

         

         

         

        I can't be the first person with endnotes in more than 1 chapter. I can't create the type of file separation I need on export if I dump everything into a single file.

         

        I'll manually enter the remaining 67 chapters manually in the code, if there isn't another option, but I am hoping for a less tedious and potentially mistake-laden solution.

        James Gifford—NitroPress
        James Gifford—NitroPress
        Legend
        August 11, 2022

        So, any two chapters exported at the same time lose the links in the second? Did you, for example, try exporting Chapters 23 and 41 (or any other random set not including 1)?

         

        I've seen these kind of errors with end notes but they usually trace to some simple flaw. This one's a doozy.

         

        I rarely recommend this approach, but you might export each chapter independently and then build them into an EPUB structure. That may be less tedious than hand-editing 65 chapters.

         

        —

          Adrienne Grace
          Adrienne GraceAuthor
          Known Participant
          August 12, 2022

          I don't seem to be able to select and export just a few chapters; it's either the whole book or export from a single open file. That being said, it does seem to be consistent — individual open files export just fine, but as soon as they are in the book, only the first chapter's endnotes export correctly.

           

          I thought the idea of exporting the chapters independently was a clever one; it also allows me to fix any link or CSS conflicts within just a few pages, instead of digging through 400 pages. Once I've got them all done, I'm definitely going to try your suggestion about compiling them into a single book! Thank you.

          L
          Community Expert
          LaubenderCommunity Expert
          Community Expert
          August 11, 2022

          Hi @Adrienne Grace ,

          how exactly are the endnote numbers formatted for the endnote texts in the chapters that do not work?

          Are there any differences to the first chapter?

           

          Note: Unfortunately formatting, also style overrides, could prevent the endnote backlinking.

          Screenshots would help where hidden characters are visible and the endnote number in the endnote text is selected with the Characters panel open and also the Swatches panel. Together with the Style Override Highlighter enabled, that little [a+] icon in the Paragraph Styles or Character Styles panel.

           

          Also:

          Could be that all InDesign documents of that InDesign book file must be merged to a single document to make that work.

           

          Regards,
          Uwe Laubender
          ( Adobe Community Professional )

          James Gifford—NitroPress
          James Gifford—NitroPress
          Legend
          August 11, 2022

          Following on from this, what you may need to do is Sync all the chapters. I'd create a complete duplicate of the book files (or at least archive them before you do this).

           

          1. Select all the files in the Book pane.
          2. Set the source marker (left column) to Chapter 1, since it exports correctly.
          3. Sync the book. This may take a while with 67 chapters.

           

          And try the export again.

           

          You may want to open Synchronize Options first and deselect everything except Cross-Reference Formats and Text Variables; I think those are the only ones that might affect end notes unless, as Laubender speculates, other style issues are having an effect. Try this limited sync first, then a full one. Warning: it may cause problems in all the child chapters (being Synced to match Chapter 1), so again, work on a copy of the files and try the limited Sync first. On the other hand, a sync is never a bad thing if you want complete consistency among the component files and don't mind going through them to fix any resulting changes.

           

          —

            James Gifford—NitroPress
            James Gifford—NitroPress
            Legend
            August 11, 2022

            Endnotes are a PITA in EPUB. The more so when you go from Word (to ID) to EPUB to Kindle.

             

            Are the chapters individual INDD files under a Book, or one file?

             

            —

            Adrienne Grace
            Adrienne GraceAuthor
            Known Participant
            August 11, 2022

            The chapters are individual files inside a single book file. The endnotes were created using InDesign's tool, not imported from Word. I thought that would export cleanly, but as I said, only in the first chapter with endnotes.

            James Gifford—NitroPress
            James Gifford—NitroPress
            Legend
            August 11, 2022

            Try exporting a few random chapters directly and see if the endnotes from them export correctly.

             

            (Sorry, these things have to be worked through one tedious step at a time... there is rarely one single cause or fix. That it's not a Word import helps, though. A lot. 🙂 )

             

            —

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