Footnotes are not autonumbering

[Scott Falkner]

I have a document with footnotes. All the text is in one story. The Footnote style is set to continue from previous number, but the footnotes are all starting at 1. The references are properly incrementing. All footnotes are numbered 1. There are no overrides. I exported to IDML and opened that, but the problem persists.

How do I get InDesign to increment the footnote number?

[Ian Blogs]

How are you generating the notes? Are you using 'Bullets and Numbering' or Indesign's footnotes?

[Scott Falkner]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Ian+Blogs  wrote

How are you generating the notes? Are you using 'Bullets and Numbering' or Indesign's footnotes?

The footnotes are created as footnotes (Type > Insert footnote).

[Peter Kahrel]

> The footnotes are created as footnotes (Type > Insert footnote).

Why are you then showing a screenshot of the Bullets and Numbering dialog? When you go to the Footnote options window, what do you see there?

[Barb Binder]

Hmmm. Do you have the wrong dialog box in your screen shot, or are you trying to control footnote numbering via a numbered list?

~Barb

[Scott Falkner]

I am trying to apply outnumbering to footnotes with a numbered list. My footnote options are below. This is damned confusing. I turned off numbering in the style and the numbers just go away. Seems like the right way to format text that you want automatically numbered is to use a numbered list. This seems to have completely buggered my footnotes. If I insert a new footnote the correct number is generated for it, but it is text, not formatting. I guess I need to manually insert numbers for my footnotes now. Still, why is autonumbering not working? I don't see how this is not a bug.

[Barb Binder]

Hi Scott:

I lay out a quarterly legal journal in InDesign, and typical issue has upwards of a thousand footnotes. I number them via Footnote Options—and not via auto-numbering—and have no issues. Are you comfortable sharing a page with me so that I can see what is going on with your file?

Also can you clarify what you mean by "outnumbering"?

~Barb

[Scott Falkner]

Outnumbering = autonumbering plus autocorrect.

Dropbox - Footnotes.idml

I didn't bother packaging the fonts, which are all OTF Frutigers.

Nothing I change in Footnote Options has any effect. I tried removing the numbering in the Footnote style, then changing footnote options. I think the footnote numbering is added as text, not formatting, and since I removed the text to use numbered paragraphs there's nothing to update.

So there are two problems here: One is a PEBKAC because I didn't understand the mechanics of footnote numbering. The other is a bug in which numbering doesn't work for footnotes.

[Barb Binder · Accepted solution]

Hi Scott:

When I add new footnotes, they work as expected, once I disable numbering for the ¶ style:

I cannot figure out how you removed the footnote number on the existing footnote (how did you remove the numbering), nor can I bring it back, short of cut and paste:

Because I do legal work, I work with more footnotes than any normal person, and I've never encountered any bug associated with them, in any version of InDesign. Then again, I've never disabled the footnote numbers and tried to rebuild them with auto-numbering.

~Barb

[Scott Falkner]

When I add a new footnote a number is generated for that footnote. I had already formatted by Footnote style to use numbering, perhaps (I cannot recall my logic at the time) because it made sense to use numbering. So when I added my footnotes I deleted the numbers InDesign added.

When I add new footnotes I, too, get numbers. What I do not get is the missing numbers replaced in the footnotes I already have. I obviously buggered my footnotes by removing the numbers.

It seems more intuitive for footnotes to use autonumbering. I mean, why have InDesign automatically insert the text of numbers in footnotes when there is an existing feature that will number the paragraphs through formatting without adding content? This makes more sense to me.

My solution is to copy the text from each footnote, delete the footnote, then add a new footnote and paste the text back in. This times 13 for this document, so it's not unbearable. As I said, the main villain is me. In trying to wrap my head around the problem I caused I discovered a bug that probably affects very few people.

[Barb Binder]

Ah. So you manually removed the numbers? I don't even know why InDesign lets us do that! I also work in FrameMaker (again with a bazillion footnotes) and while they work like InDesign in that they number automatically, you can't remove the numbers. That just makes more sense to me.

Anyway, all that matters now is that you are back on track. And only 13 footnotes to fix manually? That's awesome. Could have been a whole heck of a lot worse!

~Barb

[Jongware]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Scott+Falkner  wrote

My solution is to copy the text from each footnote, delete the footnote, then add a new footnote and paste the text back in. This times 13 for this document, so it's not unbearable. As I said, the main villain is me. In trying to wrap my head around the problem I caused I discovered a bug that probably affects very few people.

Ahhh ...