Different types of footnotes

[CSBC1]

I am working on editing a memoir for publication with much additional text, it is already three times as long as the original.

The formatting needs are simple so I am happy to do it in Apple’s Pages as I am familiar with it. An oddity of Pages [and there are many] is that it does not roll footnotes to the next page if needed, but they just stop short. However, if one does a Select all on that fn and pastes into a new document it is all there and, if exported as Word LO handles it correctly. It was my intention just to use LO for a final check before passing it to my publisher.

But another lack in Pages is that you can only have one kind of fn, which is OK while I’m editing as it is convenient to have everything on the current page.

Is it possible in LO to go through a document and redefine the fns so some are on the page and some are endnotes?

Thanks, CC

[ajlittoz]

Your specification is not very clear for someone not reading over your shoulder.

There are two ways to understand your request

• Change of appearance in footnotes
  Footnotes are just another text in Writer, though it is inserted and positioned specially. As any other text, the note is assigned a paragraph style, by default Footnote (or Endnote for endnotes). If you want a different appearance, give it another paragraph style.

• Coexistence of two note collections
  Writer can record two note collections: footnotes and endnotes. Footnotes go to the bottom of the page, above the footer and, if not enough space is available there, spill over next page(s) – yes, you can have a monster note spanning several pages! Endnotes are collected together and will later be laid out at end of the book or current section (BEWARE! Word “section” has not the same meaning in Writer as in Word).
  You select the note category when you insert it.

EDIT:
You can transform an endnote into a footnote or vice versa only if it was Insert'ed>Footnote & Endnote>Footnote or Endnote because the properties are modifiable while Insert'>Footnote & Endnote>Footnote (or …>Endnote) freezes all properties.
But, CAUTION again, if you import your existing document as a .docx, the conversion process will pollute the document in such a way that many Writer features will malfunction. So, the best way to reformat your document is to paste it as unformatted text (eventually, chapter per chapter or smaller chunks) or save it as plain text, and then apply styling. Considering the usually sophisticated required formatting in a memoir, work only with styles without any, absolutely any, direct formatting.

[keme1]

@CSBC1

Is it possible in LO to go through a document and redefine the fns so some are on the page and some are endnotes?

As mentioned by @ajlittoz: it is possible if you have inserted them in Writer as configurable. If you use a different application, the situation is anybody’s guess. The best bet is to try for yourself.

My relationship to Pages is one of deep distrust. With MS Word I mostly know what to expect, where content transfers without trouble and where I need to rework stuff. Apple Pages tends to surprise me with new issues every time I encounter a document sourced thence. That may be due to me handling more Word docs than Pages docs.

I suggest you work with Writer. If you already know which notes should be footnotes and which should be endnotes, insert them as such. To have a “live view” of the endnotes, open a separate window, have that new window display the end of your document (where you find your endnotes) and tile the windows. Otherwise, jumping between notes and running text is a matter of simply clicking on the note anchor (number/symbol marking the note).

[CSBC1]

Thank you both ajlittoz and keme1. I guess you are probably both correct, from my little experience of LO.

I started this in Pages as it was there, and I did not envisage how the document would grow. Pages has great limitations, and harmonising Pages for MacOS with iOS removed many features, which are only slowly coming back. Having started my document life with Ventura and the beta of PageMaker I can see the limitations!

As far as I can see LO seems to ‘honour’ the parameters of Pages: if I select one fn in Pages to be an endnote in LO, the whole lot move to the end. I don’t see a solution to this, other than hoping my publisher’s s/w can do it, but I’d rather make the choices myself, rather than use an ugly workaround like starting each note with a symbol to indicate if it should be a fn or en!

Thanks again

[ajlittoz]

@CSBC1

ugly workaround like starting each note with a symbol to indicate if it should be a fn or en

Not at all. This is an intrinsic property of the note. You choose it when you insert the note with the right command. Footnotes and endnotes can continue to be automatically numbered in their own categories if you want it.
Manually selecting and forcing a “note symbol” is possible but your specification is not precise enough for us to understand your ultimate goal and propose an ad-hoc solution.

[CSBC1]

It seems to me an ugly solution to make up for a shortcoming of Pages, thus I might start each note with a dingbat to indicate to the publisher if I want it to be a fn or en. Unless you are suggesting that LO should be able to move individual notes to the end on a case-by-case basis.

However I think there must be something in the way that Pages flags notes that means when exported to LO they cannot subsequently be differentiated. I have now downloaded OO and it does the same as LO - if I flag one note to be an en they all move.

It also seems to have a minimum space per note, either fn or en as you can see from the attached.

[‘Ask’ only allows me one upload per post, so I can say that in OO it spaces five small notes to fill a whole page]

[anon87010807]

@CSBC1

It also seems to have a minimum space per note, either fn or en as you can see from the attached.

Not at all, that’s probably a consequence of importing the file from another format. The faint lines surrounding the notes’ text suggest sections. And you can modify the paragraph style for footnotes and end notes to have as much or as little space below a paragraph as you want.

And by the way, on this board, an answer is supposed to offer a solution for the problem posed in the original post. Something that you only discover when you read the board manual, something that most visitors don’t do. Another bad thing about the user interface.

[CSBC1]

My issue is not the default spacing round notes, in which LO is fine but OO not.

Clearly, from my trials with both LO and OO Pages flags fns or ens in such a way when exporting to docx that once imported it is not possible to designate some as ens and others as fns - it’s all one way or the other in both free Writers, just like in Pages.

It’s not an issue while I work on the memoir as having everything on the page is much more convenient - I’d just like to sort it the way I’d like it before handing over the file.

As for posting as a Solution, finger trouble, I cliched in the wrong place.