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Can you tell me if there is a way to continuously have numbered footnotes without linking pages. I have several chapters in a 250 page report. The report has 50 or more footnotes and requires to be numbered
You can't. The only way to have footnote numbers numbered consecutively across stories is by threading them. InDesign's footnote start number can be set at the document level only. One of the shortcomings of ID's footnotes.
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How is your report prepared? Is it a single document that makes up your full report? Or is it multiple InDesign documents that you compile into your final report?
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Or is there anyway to manually change the footnote # to make the footnotes consecutive?
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The files is designed in spreads.
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And a single document, designed in spreads.
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In your Type>Footnote Options
Try changing the settings
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You can't. The only way to have footnote numbers numbered consecutively across stories is by threading them. InDesign's footnote start number can be set at the document level only. One of the shortcomings of ID's footnotes.
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Even if I start new section throughout the document, the footnotes will not allow to start at another number??????
This is a common problem. So what is my solution, physically add footnotes, that are really not footnotes?
Thanks.
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Correct. You can have footnotes restart numbering at every section (or page, or spread), but the start number can be set only once. So if you set the start number to 12, and restart numbering every section, then every section starts numbering at 12.
Join the crowd clamouring for footnote improvements at https://indesign.uservoice.com!
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Thanks for clearing that up, Peter.
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Thanks Peter... kind of ridiculous!!! I will join the crowd. Cheers and enjoy your day!
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It's not because you use unthreaded stories that you can't play with a relevant footnote numbering!
You could skirt it using another kind of numbering played by Script!
(^/) The Jedi
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Not sure what you are pertaining to ? You could skirt it using another kind of numbering played by Script! How do I do that? as of now I am placing the foot notes manual... which will not be interactive, which will be a problem.
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Numbering Footnotes is a mind view that hasn't necessarily something to see with the way InDesign numerotates basically footnotes!
Like in this video where footnotes are restarted after a para with a specific para style! 😉
(^/)
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Closer to the mark is that you need the text to be read by InDesign as one text thread. There are lots of instances where this may not be the best idea, but in this instance it's vital.
It can all be one InDesign document, but when you place the Chapter 1 word processing file, then the Chapter 2 file after it, etc., InDesign reads those as separate articles inside the single document. So you get footnote numbering for Article/Chapter 1, then again for Article/Chapter 2, etc. with its own discrete markers and numbering.
You fix that by making Chapter 2 an extension of Article/Chapter 1's text thread. not a separate, discrete article after it.
Try this:
Now get your Text tool again. Click after the last character/punctuation point of Article/Chapter 1 and hit the Enter/Return key to skip down one line. Then Select the Edit>Paste menu command to place a copy of all the text and formatting for Article/Chapter 2 at the end of the threaded text of Article/Chapter 1 and create an extension of the first text thread.
This is how you get your sequential footnotes. If Chapter 1 has, say, 20 footnotes and Chapter 2 has 15; making them one single text thread will number your footnotes from 1-35.
Hope this helps,
Randy
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Dear Randy
Thanks a lot for your detailed description!
I was extreamly helped, structuring my project the right way and having footnotes working properly and not amateurish.
Thanks again
Emmanouil
Diplographia Publishing
Greece
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Glad I could help. If you have a problem with getting any Adobe app to do what you need, come back hre and sound the alarm. There are lots of sharp folks around here who can lend a hand.
Randy
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Wouldn't making each chapter an INDD file and combining them in a book allow consecutive numbering? (Trying to remember if I've ever used book + running numbered footnotes.)
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You will need a script here too!
(^/)
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> Wouldn't making each chapter an INDD file and combining them in a book allow consecutive numbering?
Yes, that's the best approach. You can set the start number in each document. You could do that with a simple script, too, as Michel suggests. But a script is not necessary.
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This sounds like a lot of extra steps. So what your saying is each chapter should be in another design file? and combined??? getting confused
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It's a design judgment call whether to maintain chapters as stories in one INDD file or make them separate file and combine/manage them in a Book. It doesn't sound as if it gets around the basic problem (auto-numbering across the chapter files), so it may not be worth your trouble. (This is anomalous, as the whole point of a Book is that it does generate consistent page and other numbering for TOCs and the like.)
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Thanks. This is a government report. It just seems to me that calls for room for error...It would just be ideal if footnotes could be a little more versatile. I will add them in manually. Just another indesign glitch!!!!
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I can't think of a reason that making the report all one text flow would be a problem, as long as your chapter heads are defined to start on a new page, etc. That would let you use auto-numbering for everything.
I've never found it very useful to maintain more than one story in an ID project. Maybe I'm weird. 🙂
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It is when there are numerous charts and graphics and photos throughout each chapter.