EndNotes in InDesign 2024 to epub Problem

[matth77440887]

I have a problem with the way endnotes are showing in Kindle Previewer 3.

With show special characters turned on for my endnotes, only the numbers have have the blue brackets around them. That's the way I want them. My endnote page also has chapter subheads.

So, here's what I see in the popup in Kindle Previewer:

[2] Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind (New York: Pocket Books, 1936), 593.
Chapter 1

I see that Kindle is reading all the text from endnote link to endnote link, even with a paragraph return. What do I need to do to to make "Chapter 1" not show in the popup? I've tried adding character styles to each, but that's not working. All my endnotes with a chapter subhead below it include the subhead in the popup.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

As with many EPUB/Kindle features, a lot depends on the reader. The Kindle reader may not be able to distinguish between endnote content and non-note content. ETA: Are the chapter headers something you are adding to the Endnote file after it's exported?

See what you get in a basic EPUB reader like Calibre. And FWIW, I have never liked the popup note style for either format, in any reader; too erratic and fussy for my taste.

That said, I'm not quite sure what With show special characters turned on for my endnotes means in this context. Is this an ID or a KP setting?

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

And after some experimenting (it's been a while since I mucked around with end notes...)

It looks as if you simply can't put any additional text in the Endnote frame. Both KP3 and Calibre read all text from the start of one end note to the start of the next as the content for each pop-up. It does not matter if you are careful to stay outside of the endnote markers, which is what I take your comment above to mean.

I also note that both readers default to the local pop-up display regardless of what export option you select.

I don't recall endnotes being this annoying the last time I looked at them. But they are a huge PITA in so many other ways I may have just forgotten this behavior. You might experiment with footnotes for these notes, which behave similarly  in e-books but seem to have more reliable control.

[matth77440887]

Thanks. It's my organizations first real foray into epub. Thanks for the footnote suggestion. That might be worth a look. Just have to convince the decision makers.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

EPUB can be fairly straightforward but you first have to leap the hurdle to understanding how things work when there aren't any pages — or, more precisely, one page. So you don't have "footer area" for footnotes and linking end notes usually spans the whole document. How each reader decides to handle the note link and display also varies, not always in sensible ways and not always with much designer control.

I don't seem to recall this issue (of scooping up text in between notes) but it may well have always been that way. In any case, both readers are clearly using the "start to start" model for calling up the notes, so putting extra text in won't work well. It shouldn't be needed in an e-book anyway, since there won't be a need for readers to go to the whole notes section.

But try switching at least the e-book version to footnotes; they may work in a way that seems more orderly and "organic." Don't let the process get snagged on what is basically just a name change.