How to create a footnote in Affinity Publisher?

[Guest]

However, I still can't find in Affinity Publisher the option to create an automatic footnote like adobe indesing does. Can someone from serif teach me? How to create a footnote in Affinity Publisher?

[MikeW]

APub does not have automatic footnote/endnote capability at this time.

You would need to insert the reference number/mark manually, have a frame at the bottom of the page to contain the note's text and create the note's reference number/mark also manually.

[Mike Turpin]

I am in the process of editing a magazine and have received a contribution with text submitted via Microsoft Word which contains a large number of foot notes which do not copy across when doing a simple copy and paste into Affinity Publisher.  I would have thought that the ability to manage foot notes would be a fairly standard feature of an otherwise excellent software package.

Are there any plans by Serif to include this in a future update?

Mike Turpin

Editor

Council for British Archaeology - Yorkshire Forum Magazine.

[walt.farrell]

2 hours ago, Mike Turpin said:

Are there any plans by Serif to include this in a future update?

It has certainly been requested many times, and we can only guess that Serif knows it is important and is working on it. But we do not know, and Serif probably will not comment on, when they might deliver it.

[M Dale]

Automated import of footnotes or endnotes is absolutely crucial in publishing.

I would welcome this feature in Affinity Publisher rather sooner than later!

Dale

Academic book designer

[Geza Kerecsenyi]

Agreed - I would also like to add my support for this feature. It would be immensely helpful for a lot of us, and probably quite easy to implement given that indexes/contents pages already exist with this sort of functionality. The ability to add a footnote container into a Master, which would then update by itself to include any footnotes referenced on the given page, would be super useful; right now, I have to manually copy-paste the text frame out of the Master group, so that I can edit its height to fit a footnote container - not exactly neat/ideal.

My biggest issue with the manual approach is that I have to move the footnote text around depending on the text on the page - e.g. if I add an image, which pushes the footnote reference onto the next page, I then need to manually move the text frame/the note itself onto the next page, which is easy to forget and could lead to mistakes being published.

Edited February 25, 2021 by Geza Kerecsenyi
Added extra argument

[Kabeljauws]

Here also support for adding this feature. In my case there are only 60, so I will survive. 😊

[tonywaghorn]

I am aghast! How is this not in Publisher?

Plus 1 here.

[MikeTO]

On 2/25/2021 at 5:52 AM, Geza Kerecsenyi said:

Agreed - I would also like to add my support for this feature. It would be immensely helpful for a lot of us, and probably quite easy to implement given that indexes/contents pages already exist with this sort of functionality.

Implementing endnotes in a page layout app is fairly easy, it's the same basic code as an index.

Implementing footnotes that appear at the end of a series of linked frames are slightly more difficult.

Implementing footnotes that appear at the bottom of the current page are a pain to code. Very doable given what Affinity has already pulled off, but they're not as easy to implement as you might think.

Footnotes also require a span columns feature when used in a 2+ column layout and we don't have span columns yet.

[BBmeister]

I agree to all of the above. Footnotes are essential for most publishing work! I was a user of Indesign until Adobe went to the subscription route which is outrageous. People have been asking for footnotes for Affinity Publisher for years and still nothing. Why is this so hard to implement?

[cyberlizard]

I just wish Affinity / Serif would provide even a glimmer of light on the matter, even rough dates would be good or a roadmap of features.  I have a document waiting which has 469 endnotes.  For now, I am using Quark!  The interface is a bit wooden, but it is better than Scribus and I am reluctant to go back to Adobe (even though the option is available to me.)

Come on Affinity, even Pageplus supported these features (to a degree).

[HpR]

Without footnotes, I'm f…ed with most of my publishing projects; I'll have to dump APub and return to InDesign. 😡 Had I known that before, I would never have bought this crippled wannabe publishing app. I deeply regret it now.

[Katia]

Plus one here as well. Footnotes and endnotes are absolutely essential for academic writing. 

 

[niallsop]

Just downloaded Publisher for 30-day trial. I like it and would be keen to purchase and ditch monthly Adobe payments EXCEPT that there is no footnote/endnote feature. Just about to embark on project which will definitely have endnotes so, unfortunately, will have to stick with inDesign in the short time. Does anyone actually know whether or not Serif intends to include this feature in the foreseeable future? I know from the above that there is a movement to have endnotes and footnotes included but that doesn't mean anyone is heeding it or is likely to do so.

[HpR]

Well, obviously they know about it but don’t have a timescale yet. So, please tell them (as I did) that you won’t buy their app. As everywhere, money is the only language they understand. 

[HpR]

Quote

“I can confirm that Affinity Publisher does not currently support footnotes or endnotes. This is something our developers are aware many users are awaiting and we hope to add this in a future update - though we have no timescale for this currently, my apologies.“

 

[M Dale]

Seeing that many people desire the footnote/endnote option, and are postponing the purchase of Affinity Publisher, the question arises: Dear Affinity people, what is holding you back in implementing such an enormously important feature?

Dale

[R C-R]

4 hours ago, M Dale said:

Seeing that many people desire the footnote/endnote option, and are postponing the purchase of Affinity Publisher, the question arises: Dear Affinity people, what is holding you back in implementing such an enormously important feature?

The answer is fairly simple: there are lots of missing features people want to see added, as well as a bunch of bugs they want to see eliminated. The developers are doing the best they can to prioritize adding/fixing each of them without messing up what already works correctly.

That is more difficult than it might seem, in part because everything must work without problems in all 3 apps on 3 different operating systems. (There is no APub app for the iPadOS but the 2 iPadOS apps still have to open APub docs without loosing or mangling anything.)

[niallsop]

So perhaps that's a definite maybe but possibly no more a contingency ... feasibly?

[M Dale]

It seems that we are moving in the right direction, after this answer from Affinity. What we need now is a sense of urgency. Footnotes and endnotes are often part and paced of the bread and butter of designers. Many of them struggle with the concept of renting their software of a certain company versus owning it downright. Renting for a high monthly fee is regarded by many designers as as an obscene system which has turned around the concept of customer service to the client into customer dependency of the client.

I think with Affinity introducing automated foot and end notes, it may well be able to turn the market on their favour.

in the mean time, we live in hope!

Dale

[niallsop]

Following up on M Dale's comments ...

I am a retired graphic designer but still 'dabble' as they say. I have used InDesign from the day it was launched (literally) but, like many others, find the subscription system to be no more than a money-grabbing exercise. The time has come to change and, from all accounts, the Affinity option is the only viable alternative.

That said, increasingly my 'dabbling' throws up projects that require footnotes and/or endnotes so I can't take the chance that Affinity will deliver the goods in time. Reluctantly, therefore, I'll stay with the Adobe option and Affinity loses out ... I'll just have to hang fire on that email I was going to send to all my graphic-design colleagues who only used InDesign on my recommendation.

[firstdefence]

57 minutes ago, niallsop said:

I'll just have to hang fire on that email I was going to send to all my graphic-design colleagues who only used InDesign on my recommendation.

Is this comment really necessary, footnotes, endnotes in fact anynotes won't suddenly appear because of it.

[Wosven]

5 minutes ago, firstdefence said:

Is this comment really necessary

This thread could be added to this one to avoid beginning another repetition of this 34+ pages thread...

 

[niallsop]

Yes it is, for it's a reminder to anyone from Serif reading this that one unhappy client, or potential client, can influence others ... who in turn influence others  ... who in turn ...

In other words exactly how I found out about it in the first place ...

[v_kyr]

Well all in all there is usually much more tightly related to footnotes/sidenotes/endnotes handling, especially for technical thesis/books/articles publishing, like for example ...

• Creation of variables, references, footnotes, bibliography
• Create and link to bibliographic references, contents table of bibliography/papers
• Create Bibliography lists and entries with Citavi or EndNote
• Common PUB notes handling – footnote enhanced, convert to endnotes, create sidenote
• Common PUB custom vars handling – Handling custom variables
• Create Glossary with pictures, contents table of figures, contents table of formulas etc.
• Create markers, variables and cross-reference formats
• References to footnotes with chapter number
• Reference to specific pages in book
• Running header, footnotes/bibliography/figures list etc.  across multiple book/project related files
• Special numbering of footnotes
• ... and so on ...

So the whole concept of footnotes/sidenotes/endnotes has to be ideally build-up in a very reusable, customizable and flexible manner, which of course isn't a trivial task to design/create/implement at all.