Missing Endnote Reference Numbers after Placing

Report · Oct 11, 2023

I'm importing text from a word document into InDesign, and the word doc already has endnotes, links, and superscript endnote numbers. The problem is when I File>Place the text into InDesign, everything shows up except for the superscripted endnote reference numbers. The crazy thing is if I right-click on an endnote, and click "Go to endnote reference", InDesign will navigate to the correct page, but I get the warning below.

Nothing is locked nor hidden. And if it is, I don't know how to find it. Can anyone tell me why the reference numbers aren't showing up and how to fix it?

Report · Oct 11, 2023

End notes and footnotes in Word are fragile and it doesn't take much for the import to fail or go off track.

How EXACTLY are you importing the text? If it's cut and paste, I'd suggest importing the whole document (to a dummy/interim ID doc if that works best), paying close attention to the import settings (check Show Import Options in the import file menu). Then, work from that import or cut and paste from it.

You might also save the Word doc as RTF, and both try the import from that and open/resave it as DOCX, then try again. Those processes force something of a rewrite of the doc and can clean up corrupted info.

If not, report back and we'll try the next thing. 🙂