Footnotes are not autonumbering

Forum|Forum|6 years ago
March 19, 2019
2 replies
6220 views

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?

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Correct answer Barb Binder

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.

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

Barb Binder

Community Expert

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

~Barb at Rocky Mountain Training

Scott Falkner

Author

Community Expert

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

Correct answer

Community Expert

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.

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

~Barb at Rocky Mountain Training