Specifying a Single Footnote Number

[Don34862646jbr5]

I'm working on a book. Some of it is text that I have written, and the footnote numbering should be sequential. Some of it is text from judicial opinions. I don't always include all of the court's footnotes in the quoted text, but the numbers of the footnotes I do include need to be the court's footnote number rather than a number in sequence with the footnotes of my own text. So, for example, if my text has notes 1 through 17 and I then insert a quotation from an opinion that has a single footnote in it--say footnote #3--how can I make that footnote call a 3 instead of 18? After the quotation, the sequential footnote numbering should pick up again at 18.

I may be explaining this badly. If I have a series of footnotes going from 1 to 17, and I add a footnote somewhere in that range, can I give the newly-added footnote its own special number without disturbing existing notes 1-17?

[Peter Kahrel]

What you're after is perfectly clear. The answer is no, you can't do that the way you'd like to. InDesign's note numbers (of both footnotes and endnotes) can be set only once, at the level of the document. They restart numbering at every story.

To get what you want, it would be easiest (I think) simply to add a manual note reference (static, hard-coded) and add the note in a new paragraph in the previous footnote. So if you want to add a note 1 after note 17, insert a manual number in the text and add note 1 as a new paragraph in note 17. When you then add a footnote, it'll be number 18 and will be placed as expected.

[Don34862646jbr5]

Hi, Peter,

I admire the cleverness of your reply, but it assumes that the sequential and non-sequential footnotes appear on the same page of text. Sometimes that is true, but often it is not. That the numbering of footnotes exists at document level seems to me a non-problem. Adobe already has numbering for both footnotes and endnotes separately. Adding an end note does not increment the footnote numbering, and adding a footnote does not increment the endnotes. All the program needs is a second kind of footnote, coded at the document level, that does not increment the automatic footnote counter.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

I'm not an expert in this field - but wouldn't it look much better - and be more practical - if you add this footnote as a part of the quote? Without mixing it with your footnotes? 

Then, you won't need to care for the numbering as it won't be "live" - be just some superscripted number in the quoted text - with corresponding number below this quote?

And reader will find it much quicker. 

[Don34862646jbr5]

Thanks, Robert. It might be more practical, except that's not the publisher's format, and it would interrupt the text flow, just as it would if we instead put all footnote material as parenthetical expressions in the text. Footnotes, at least in the kind of writing I do, are really "asides."

On the bright(er) side, my experience of 40+ years of teaching is that most students don't read the footnotes anyway!

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

How about Anchored TFs to simulate additional Footnotes? 

Positioning them at the bottom of the page can be automated... 

[Don34862646jbr5]

You have to be gentle; this is only my second week of using InDesign. So, trying not to sound as ignorant as I actually am, what's a TF?

I'm grateful for your help and the time you're spending to fix a stranger's problem.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

Sorry, it's a shortcut from TextFrame. 

And you are welcome.

[Don34862646jbr5]

I'll give that a shot when I get to work. It will allow me to begin to learn text frames. (I haven't had to yet, because the publisher has the whole book set up from the last edition. But it's time.)

Thanks.

[Don34862646jbr5]

So as not to waste anyone's time, I did figure out a way to accomplish what I need, even before I posted originally, but it's so kludgy that I hoped someone had come upon something a tad more elegant.

At the first non-sequential footnote, if I make the footnote call in the text invisible and type in the number I want, I can then change the number in the footnote itself to match. That's the good news. The bad news is that it is then necessary to follow that procedure with each succeeding footnote in the chapter. That's doable, but cumbersome. Further editing of previous text may require following the whole procedure again.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

Actually - it's not entirely a bad idea... 

Of course, like you've said, manually, it's an overkill, but can be easily scripted.

The only downside - contents of those different kinds of footnotes will be mixed...

[Don34862646jbr5]

Perhaps, but scripting in InDesign is still a ways above my pay grade! I'll have to be in at least my third week.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

Any chance you can share your file? Part of it? On priv if you preefer.

I could prepare some mockup - but it will take some time and I might do something differrently - so testing on a real-life file would be much better.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

A simple mockup:

Sorted by Character Index - 4th column from the right - and InDesign even graciously keeps contents of the Footnotes right after the reference in the text...

And after hiding TextStyleRanges with all other CharStyles - in this case just [None]:

... we have a clear picture of all references - now it's just a simple loop and updating of the numbers / letters / icons / whatever in the main text and in the body of the Footnote.

[Don34862646jbr5]

Robert, it's going to take me a while to digest this, but what I think you're suggesting is just putting in all the notes, sequential and non-sequential (which will have their automatic numbers), and doing the renumbering in a single operation when all of the other material in the document is squared away.

I'm going to need a bit of time to horse around in my experimental file with your TF suggestion and then separately to look at your latest idea. (Fortunately, the book isn't due until October 2025. That's the good news. The bad news is that it gives the Supreme Court (a/k/a the Washington All-Stars) two more terms in which to confuse the law even further.)

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

If you are OK with mixing footnote's contents - re-numbering can be run multiple times - doesn't have to be run only at the end. 

The bottom list on my screenshots shows texts extracted from the selected Story - and everything is referenced in a way, that if you want to re-number - old "numbers" will be just replaced with new values. 

And you can also update only one set of Footnotes. 

And - as a bonus - you can have ANY kind of "numbering" - including language specific diacritics - so instead of a, b, c, d, e, f... you can have a, ą, b, c, ć, d, e, ę, f... for Polish language. Or icons - you would just have to specify a list. 

The idea with TFs - this would require a lot of extra manual work - if you want to do this manually. Scripting it would speed-up the process - but wouldn't be as painless as mixed contents. 

[Don34862646jbr5]

Robert,

I'm not sure what you mean by "mixing footnotes." In answer to your previous question, I'd be happy to send you a chapter so you can see first-hand what I'm talking about. (The material is copyrighted, so I've no concerns about a limited share. If people were clamoring to read this stuff, I'd be living happily off my royalties now.) I am a bit reluctant to post it to the community, though; I don't know what the publisher would think of that. I recognize that you may not want to share your email address, so I'm wondering whether we can arrange this.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

By "mixing" I meant what you've right now - two types on footnotes below the text - done with built-in mechanism.

I'll send you my email on priv. 

I won't share your file.