Two sets of footnotes in InDesign

[Aditya29661206czt4]

Folks, I have a word manuscript with 8000 footnotes and about a 1000 endnotes. 

The author wants the endnotes to appear as a second set of footnotes at the bottom of every page, with star dagger series as placeholders. 

I dont want to do this manually. Any changes to text implies I'll be buried with several manual changes. 

Please advise best course of action. 

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

Can they be mixed - or each one as a separate block of text?

[Aditya29661206czt4]

They need to be a separate block of text. One with numbers 1,2,3.... and others with star, dagger, double dagger and so fort. 

Can they be mixed - or each one as a separate block of text?

By @Robert at ID-Tasker

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Please advise best course of action.

I assume running away very fast is not "best"? 🙂

My first thought is that I hope this project is in meticulously created and maintained Word, because documents of vastly smaller scale can spin problems left and right trying to get footnotes, endnotes and especially both to import without fault... as a start. My second thought is that I hope it's not all one Word file, because an Eiffel Tower made of blown glass would be more stable to work with.

But that aside, I think the author is being quite unreasonable. I've never seen a book of any type, including bilingual books on complex topics like theology, that needed a double footnote system. Footnotes are footnotes, conceptually, functionally and in overall information presentation. End notes are the same things but to different ends. Trying to double them, blend them, etc. indicates (nine times out of ten) an author who really doesn't know what they're doing, or what they're asking of either the designer or the reader. The information should be divided between (page) footnotes and (chapter-end) end notes, according to very, very mature publishing and information-management rules.

It will come as no surprise that InDesign can't handle a double set of either, and nor can any publication tool I know of, including the mighty FrameMaker. There's a reason they don't support this model: see above.

It's possible scripting and/or an elaborate automation system (which is Robert's specialty) could make it happen, but it's likely to be a "dead link" setup wherein after conversion, the reference markers and referenced text have to be managed manually. It would take whopping effort to create a plugin, of any kind that could let you double up the two features in an automated, interactive way.

So I suggest one of the two following options:

• Tell the author they are being unreasonably complicated with their presentation, which cannot be easily handled by even the best layout and publication system, and get them to choose footnote-v-endnote for each of these 9,000 elements.
• Or, tell the author who wishes to reinvent book format to the end goal of total unreadability that it's going to be a manual job, and the hours and per-page costs are going to mount up in equally staggering fashion.

Or just run. Some jobs are just not worth any fee because getting to a mutually acceptable result, and full payment, may be somewhere between "not worth it" and impossible.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

Fun fact 😉 back in 2002, I've created kind of Footnotes functionality for ID 2.0.2 - before it has been added in CS2.

It wasn't automatic - but worked well enough.

Extra TextFrames were created under every TF of the Main Story and linked, as a new Footnotes story, then user would navigate between those TFs - though the script's window so no mouse needed - left/right arrows for next/prev or with Shift +10/-10 - and increase / decrease height of the TF - up/down arrows +/-1 or with SHIFT +/- 10 - and also top TextWrap, Ctrl + up/down arrows - to fit contents of the corresponding Footnotes.

Same techinque - but with added automation - will be implemented in the IDT.

So, technically, it would be possiblle to have more than one kind of Footnotes - or any Notes, as there would be no problem to handle Side Notes as well.

[TᴀW]

Hi @Aditya29661206czt4 

If you've got a document that has 8000 regular InDesign footnotes, and 1000 regular endnotes, and you simply want the endnotes to appear at the bottom of each page rather than at the end of the each chapter, such a layout is supported by my (not free) Footwork add-on: https://www.id-extras.com/products/footwork/

It will lay out the pages for you: It shortens the main text frame on each page to make just the right room for the endnote frame, and then threads the endnote story at the bottom of each page, resizing it to fit.

It makes sure the correct endnotes appear on each page automatically.

In the second screenshot on the page I linked to above, you'll see a similar layout. Except that here Footwork is managing (i.e. automatically placing the frame on each page and making it the right size) the second text (which is a translation of the main text, and is a separate, regular InDesign story), and the second set of footnotes (which are simply a commentary on the translation) are regular InDesign footnotes (so there are no endnotes).

But it can work fine with endnotes too.

I think this configuration is pretty common, so though I agree with @James Gifford—NitroPress that often too many comments on a page and double sets of footnotes, or very long footnotes, are a sign of poor planning on the author's part, nevertheless in many cases of complex critical texts double sets of footnotes are required and are the best and simplest method to handle everything neatly.

I'd be happy to work on a complex typesetting project like this with Footwork!

[TᴀW]

P.S. My main concern with what you've stated is the star dagger system for numbering 1000 endnotes.

If I'm not mistaken (but please double check), with endnotes you cannot tell the numbering to restart on every page as you can with footnotes.

This means that, towards the end of the book, you will end up with an endnote number that includes a thousands daggers, stars, and the rest of it. That can't be right!

[FRIdNGE]

Hmm! … Not sure a complex approach would be necessary. 😉

Quickly manually done for test but:

• Only using the InDesign basic "Footnote" feature [all the footnotes in the screenshot are true footnotes]

• About the 2 footnotes numberings [1, 2,  … (on document) and †, ††, … (on page)] and the placing of the original endnotes [†, ††, …] at the bottom of each page under the orginal footnotes [1, 2, 3, …], it could be done by a Script.

manual test-layout

(^/)  The Jedi

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@FRIdNGE

Away from my laptop so can't check myself. 

Are you saying that you've moved contents of the Footnote - re-arranged order - and InDesign is keeping this new order?

[FRIdNGE]

Not me but the Script!  😉

… Just before the last step of the Script:

(^/)

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

But you've said that - initially - you've done it manually? 

[Obi-wan Kenobi]

Just because the Script only exists at the moment in my mind!  Aha!

(^/)

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

Just because the Script only exists at the moment in my mind!  Aha!

(^/)

By @Obi-wan Kenobi

So you just don't want to say how you've done this? 

[TᴀW]

The OP says they want the current endnotes to appear as a second set of footnotes at the bottom of the page, not merged with the footnotes.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

This wasn't to you either @TᴀW.

[TᴀW]

Right. In that second screenshot, the top Hebrew text is in a separate text frame, and the Translation and Notes section, along with the bottom footnotes (which are just regular footnotes to the Translation and Notes section) are a single separate text frame.

The OP wants a slightly different configuration: Top frame would be the main text + built in InDesign footnotes, and the bottom frame would be automatically managed text frames that are part of the endnote story.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

If there are two separate text flows... why not just run them as page top/bottom flows and footnote each independently? The footnotes for each would be at the bottom of the relevant text frame. Numbering would have to follow the same scheme but would not have to intermix.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

Sorry @TᴀW - it wasn't a reply to your post.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Jsut suggesting that's a 90% congruent solution that requires no workarounds.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

Sorry @TᴀW, I've just realised, that I've mixed up your replies with others.

[TᴀW]

No worries.

[acyuta_0807]

There is just one text flow in my case,  not two.
Thanks for your original response. I will try and convince the author about keeping endnotes at the end. 

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

Just because the Script only exists at the moment in my mind!  Aha!

By @Obi-wan Kenobi

@FRIdNGE 

So will you share your solution? The manual steps.