Importing large docx text with endnotes into Publisher V2

[Dave42]

I'm trying to import many pages (~60) of Word text (docx) with endnotes into Publisher V2.0.3. I want to use text-autoflow rather than manual page creation and linking.

My master page is A4 facing, text frame with 2 cols on each page, pages linked

1. I Paste text into first (and only) body page

2. Publisher populates first page and creates a second Endnote page. Both pages have overflow text (as expected)

3. I autoflow the first page (click <shift>flow)

4. The text flows from first page into existing second Endnote page (seems to creates a new text frame under the existing one) and then flows through into new auto-created pages.

So I'm left with the both autoflowed body text and Endnote text frames on second page (one overlaid over the other). What I would expect is autoflow to insert pages in front of the Endnote page.

Any hints on how to use text autoflow with large amounts of text containing endnotes ? At the moment I'm reduced to manually creating and linking pages prior to paste - works fine (Endnote page added after manually-created pages) but tedious for large amounts of text.

Apologies if this has been asked before (I searched but couldn't find a topic)

[MikeTO]

Hi Dave and welcome to the forum.

I duplicated this problem and it's not specific to importing a file from Word, it can happen even with text typed into Publisher.

Your page 1 is based on a master that has a text frame on it. When Publisher creates the page for end notes automatically, it bases the endnote page on the same master but draws a new text frame on top of the master's text frames. I understand why Publisher thinks it necessary to create its own frame for the endnotes but this is inconvenient in practice and it's going to be tricky for you because there are a few bugs here you'll need to workaround.

1. Place the text into the frame on page 1 and Publisher will create page 2 for the endnotes.
2. Go to page 2 with the endnotes. Shift+click its overset indicator and it will create as many pages as necessary.
3. If the last endnote page is a left page, add 1 more page so it's an even spread.
4. Add a new spread after the endnotes pages.
5. Go back to page 1 and click the overset indicator on the text frame - don't Shift+click it or you'll have to start over.
6. Go to the new spread you created at the end of the document and link the overset from page 1 to the left page. Publisher will autoflow all of the pages.
7. Using the Pages panel (you might want to stretch it wide or use small thumbnails so you can see a lot at once), drag the endnotes pages to the end of the document.

Why do you have to jump through all these hoops? Because if you Shift+click the overset indicator on page 1 to autoflow, you're going to wind up with text behind the endnotes as you've experienced, or generated pages that aren't linked to page 1. I tested this a couple of dozen times and got bad results no matter what I did so I think following the steps above will get you what you want.

Good luck!

[RM f/g]

Or:

1. place text in on page 1,

2. convert endnotes to footnotes,

3. autoflow text, convert footnotes to endnotes.

Then again: if you have to insert images and tables, you may have to use the seven steps method descibed above anyway.

[Dave42]

Mike & RM, Thanks very much for taking the time to look at this, and for the work-arounds. Much appreciated.

I'd have thought pasting from Word was a fairly common use-case for importing endnotes  and am therefore a little surprised that feature testing didn't pick up this behaviour. Hopefully it will get fixed in near future.

[MikeTO]

6 hours ago, Dave42 said:

Mike & RM, Thanks very much for taking the time to look at this, and for the work-arounds. Much appreciated.

I'd have thought pasting from Word was a fairly common use-case for importing endnotes  and am therefore a little surprised that feature testing didn't pick up this behaviour. Hopefully it will get fixed in near future.

Well, it's not specific to Word but it's more the design of the new endnotes feature. I think this is a bit of a special case and illustrates why it might be nice to have the ability to open word processing files as new documents, not just place their text into existing documents.

Generating endnotes is different than generating a TOC or Index, you're given no choice as to where the endnotes will be placed. This might be wise but it doesn't give a choice of which master page to use, I believe it just uses the master of the preceding page. Then it ignores the master and creates a new frame based on the width and height of the text frame containing the end note*, and if it's facing pages, it mirrors the frame's position. With a normal text frame that matches the margin guides you won't notice this but if you draw a frame 1 inch by 1 inch and place it in the upper right corner of page 1 and then insert an endnote, the endnote frame will be placed in the upper left corner of page 2. The mirroring is a rather nice touch. *The exceptions are if you inserted an endnote into artistic text or a frame that was converted from a shape such as a star. In those cases, Publisher will ignore the object's width and height and create a text frame that matches page 2's margin guides.

But regardless, it will not use the master's text frame, if one exists. It might have been nice had the endnotes feature included the ability to choose a master page and for the notes to be placed in that master's frame if one existed, but the user could have drawn multiple frames on the master and Publisher wouldn't know which to use. I understand why Serif chose to generate a new frame but I think the generated page should not have been based on a master page.

I experimented with moving notes from the generated frame to a master frame and it's a bad idea. I tried dragging the selected text rather than copying and pasting which I knew wouldn't work but the note references become invalid when you drag the text. The endnotes feature has a lock on the generated frame.

I recommend creating a unique master page without text frames and applying it to the endnotes pages after they're generated since the master frames would be useless and just get in the way.

Although you're having some challenges getting your endnotes in from Word without jumping through a few hoops, the new footnotes/endnotes/sidenotes feature is pretty incredible and is better than the other guys so you're going to like it.

I know there are some issues with warping text that Serif has to address but check out these screenshots - you can even warp endnotes and footnotes! Even the invisible characters are nicely warped which I wasn't expecting. I know this is impractical but I was wondering what would happen if somebody did this. The only thing that didn't warp properly was the rule above the footnotes. Sidenotes can't be warped.

 

[Old Bruce]

On 12/30/2022 at 8:08 AM, Dave42 said:

I autoflow the first page (click <shift>flow)

1. With your one page new empty Publisher document Place the Word file. You now have two pages.

2. Make a new, 2 page, spread after Page 1. With the same master page as Page 1.

3. Link the text frame from Page one to Page two's text frame. You now have three pages with the story and on the fourth and final page are the endnotes (which may have an overflow indicator).

4. Shift Click on the page three text overflow button. You should now have however many pages of the story and the final page is the one with the endnotes (which may have an overflow indicator).

5. For the Endnotes; Shift click on the final page's text overflow indicator to get new pages with the endnotes.

[rjav]

This is indeed a useful feature, especially the fact that is preserves formatting such as italics. However, I don't want to call this section "Endnotes" but there doesn't seem to be anyway of editing the heading or changing its format.

[MikeTO]

5 minutes ago, rjav said:

This is indeed a useful feature, especially the fact that is preserves formatting such as italics. However, I don't want to call this section "Endnotes" but there doesn't seem to be anyway of editing the heading or changing its format.

You can set the wording and formatting of the Endnotes title in the Notes panel - please see the section at the bottom of this screenshot.

 

[rjav]

Even better! Thank you MikeTO

[Robin G13]

New here and having a lot of difficulty getting endnotes to work. I also have a document of about 60 pages and need endnotes to appear at the end of each chapter. But no matter what options I choose, they appear randomly. If I could cut and paste them in the right place, I'd be good but that doesn't work. I have tried the various options here and still can't get them to be less random. Sometimes some of them appear at the end of the entire manuscript. Sometimes, like with this option, they are outside the frame and I can't snap them in.

I really need to get this formatted quickly and could use help.

Thanks

[MikeTO]

Hi @Robin G13 and welcome to the forums.

The issue is likely that you are using "Custom" instead of "Document-wide". This is the most confusing aspect of the Notes feature. You can't create presets or styles of notes, there is just a "Document-wide" setting for endnotes and "custom" settings for individual notes. If you've created each note as custom, then changing the settings will change only that note.

Click outside of the text frame to remove the cursor from text. Select Document-wide. Using the panel menu, choose Revert all Endnotes to Document Settings. Now set the options the way you want them and all of the notes will be formatted the same way.

You will find more details in my free Publisher manual.

Cheers

[Robin G13]

Mike

I see in your manual how to make it all go to the end, but not to the end of a section. I just followed these steps and I got the numbers in the right place with no text.

When you say "the way I want them," there is nothing that says at the end of each section. So how DO I want them if I want them at the end of each chapter?

 

Thanks for your help so far.

Robin

[MikeTO]

To position endnotes at the end of a Section, set Note Position to Shared Section Frame.

To position endnotes at the end of a Chapter in a Publisher Book, set set Note Position to Shared Document Frame (because that will create one shared frame per Chapter).

[Robin G13]

Well, that was fun but they are all now sitting in a clump in the middle of the document, between chapters. I must be missing something obvious.

[MikeTO]

40 minutes ago, Robin G13 said:

Well, that was fun but they are all now sitting in a clump in the middle of the document, between chapters. I must be missing something obvious.

Just to get the terminology straight, I think you're using Sections for your chapters, and not Affinity Chapters which are standalone documents. If that is the case, you'll need to set Note Position to Shared Section Frame for the document-wide settings so that there is a shared section frame at the end of each section. If in doubt, revert all your notes to the document settings.

[Robin G13]

Yes, using sections as per the publisher recommendations but I also removed all formatting (at least using their directions) before placing into Affinity.

Should I start over and place each chapter as a chapter?

When I reset and select Shared Section Frame, I get this, but only in the first chapter. And the text is still sitting in the clump.

 

[MikeTO]

10 minutes ago, Robin G13 said:

Yes, using sections as per the publisher recommendations but I also removed all formatting (at least using their directions) before placing into Affinity.

Should I start over and place each chapter as a chapter?

When I reset and select Shared Section Frame, I get this, but only in the first chapter. And the text is still sitting in the clump.

 

There's no need to use Chapters for such a short document, Sections are the way to go.

Did you create your Sections using the Section Manager in Publisher? Note that sections created in another app such as Microsoft Word will be lost when imported, you need to create the Sections in Publisher.

Those endnotes are definitely broken - were they created in another app such as Word? Those generally import okay but you might need to delete these and start over.

 

[Robin G13]

Deleting the endnotes and starting over seems like a nightmare. I will need to add sections in Affinity, so let me try that first. Didn't know to do that, so thank you.

But--what happens when I start a section on say, page 27 at the start of a new chapter and the endnotes push the new chapter start to 30? So far, adding a new section for the start of Ch 1 and 2 makes no difference, even when I go back and redo the endnote placement steps.

 

 

[MikeTO]

1 hour ago, Robin G13 said:

But--what happens when I start a section on say, page 27 at the start of a new chapter and the endnotes push the new chapter start to 30? So far, adding a new section for the start of Ch 1 and 2 makes no difference, even when I go back and redo the endnote placement steps.

Let's say you get all your endnotes set up and they're in one endnote frame at the end of the document. Then you create a section on page 27 and change the document-wide endnote setting from shared document frame to shared section frame. Publisher would then insert a new page before page 27 for the first section's endnotes. As you add and remove pages with sections, the endnote page will float along with the rest of the pages.

[Robin G13]

I'll try that but the frustrations are mounting. I changed the header style on chapter 8 and the last 3 chapters disappeared. i waited 30 min in case they were getting themselves recombobulated but nothing.

 

I like the looks of the Affinity layout but I have to get this book moving.

[MikeTO]

If the last 3 chapters disappeared when you changed the header style, the text for those chapters might be overset - is there a red eye icon next to the Text Flow Out control in the bottom right part of the frame? Check your Paragraph > Flow Options for the header style you applied.

If you're able to share the document here then I'll take a look at it but it's hard to know what the issue is without seeing at least screenshots.

 

[Robin G13]

How can I share the document here? Walk me through the steps and I will try. But also, I will try what you just suggested. (yes to the red eye and yes that worked and many thanks)

You, unlike me, have the patience of a saint and I appreciate it.

Edited December 13, 2024 by Robin G13

[MikeTO]

1 hour ago, Robin G13 said:

How can I share the document here? Walk me through the steps and I will try. But also, I will try what you just suggested. (yes to the red eye and yes that worked and many thanks)

You, unlike me, have the patience of a saint and I appreciate it.

If you share it here it will be public and anybody can download it. If you're willing to do that, just copy and paste or drag the file from your computer to the text editor when you're replying and it will be attached to your reply. If you can't share it publicly, you'll have to wait for Serif to reply to this thread. They might ask you to share the file with them and they can provide a private upload link.

Cheers

[Robin G13]

Ah, maybe not just yet

[Robin G13]

OK, found the part in your manual about breaking links. Started over. Inserted frame breaks as you suggested. Should I also insert a page break, as in MS Word? The endnotes are at the end, laid out as I would expect them to be, by chapter. But they won't flow to the right section.

All sections have a section break but the blue lines are there with no red arrows. If I try to break the frame link, the next section tried to flow partially into the previous one.

And why do I now have 200+ pages instead of about 65?

Edited December 14, 2024 by Robin G13
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