Sidenotes - Per note paragraph styles & custom text positioning

[Intuos5]

Right now, the sidenotes are always right alongside the position of the note. This makes it impossible to use the feature for a layout like this:

I made this mock-up using cross-references, the issue with this though is that if the note's position in the text changes to the next frame, the cross-reference remains on the wrong page. So this process is completely manual.

Therefore, I would like to request a feature where you can place notes in a frame alongside the text, which you can define in the masterpage (I have created a masterpage with both the main text frame and a notes text frame). Then, I would like to set a paragraph style per note, you can see I have a note with Roman numbering format (so I can differentiate between source references and additional notes).

In this example case, I have the notes populated from top to bottom in the second text frame. The second text frame has a different baseline grid and the notes can have unique paragraph styles, which allows for unique numbering.

[MikeTO]

Hi, I'm not sure I understand the issue. Could you upload a document that illustrates the problem, or a screen recording?

Thanks,

Mike

[Intuos5]

Hi Mike,

Here's the problem illustrated in a video:

I don't know of a way to reproduce this kind of sidenotes using the built-in tools (to automate the placement of sources and notes using this format). Please have a look at this file to see if you know of any.

Sidenotes with cross-references.afpub

[MikeTO]

[EDIT - this was in reply to the wrong thread. Oops]

Thanks for the test document. The issue is that the text frame has content scaling applied. No, it shouldn't do this, but it's easily fixable.

If you link that text frame to a new one and type text until it spills over as I've done in this screenshot, you'll see that the text in the new frame is much smaller than the text in the existing frame even though they're both 9 pt. The reason for this is that at some point you dragged the bottom-right content scaling handle instead of the bottom-right size handle. The outer handle scales the content of the frame with the frame instead of just scaling the frame.

There are ways to fix this - you can reset the frame's attributes to the defaults by choosing Edit > Defaults > Revert. There is no way to see the scaling factor numerically and reset it to 100% by typing in that value. I prefer to fix it by deleting the problematic text frame and drawing a new one. That's so much easier than messing with defaults.

Good luck!

[Intuos5]

Hi @MikeTO thanks for pointing this out! I do think though, that your reply belongs to this thread:

What I am asking for here, is additional functionality for the sidenote tool to allow me to place sidenotes in a frame alongside the text frame with custom paragraph style formatting. In addition, I would like the sidenotes not to be aligned with the text, but rather fill the frame alongside the text from top to bottom. Right now, the sidenotes are always horizontally aligned with the position they were inserted in the text.

See:

But using cross-references for sidenotes has the disadvantage that the notes have to manually be added to the correct text frame on the correct page.

Hope this makes sense.

 

[Oufti]

Hi @MikeTO!

I am not sure if you answered the good topic? Or perhaps is it a problem you discovered when opening the join file (what I did not, shame on me)? 

Anyway the main question, as I understand it, looks like the OP would "interlace" two types of marginal notes: one sequence numbered with roman numerals and another with common figures. (1, 2, 3, i, ii, iii, 4, 5, iv, v…)
I also don't see this being possible with Notes panel. 

He thus tried to achieve it with cross-references, but encounters the problem that — unlike notes — it doesn't follow its reference in main text when this one jumps to next page (and much more)… 

 

[Grilled…]

[Intuos5]

8 minutes ago, Oufti said:

Hi @MikeTO!

I am not sure if you answered the good topic? Or perhaps is it a problem you discovered when opening the join file (what I did not, shame on me)? 

Anyway the main question, as I understand it, looks like the OP would "interlace" two types of marginal notes: one sequence numbered with roman numerals and another with common figures. (1, 2, 3, i, ii, iii, 4, 5, iv, v…)
I also don't see this being possible with Notes panel. 

He thus tried to achieve it with cross-references, but encounters the problem that — unlike notes — it doesn't follow its reference in main text when this one jumps to next page… 

 

[Grilled…]

Yes, exactly.

I have added a new video in the post before yours to illustrate the difference in terms of how the sidenotes are aligned with the text, whereas the cross references are not. This is works well, until you consider that the text may spill over to another frame on another page and then the reference for the cross-reference becomes isolated from the text, as you mentioned.

[MikeTO]

I did reply in the wrong thread, sorry.

I think this is a good feature suggestion and it could probably be accomplished by adding a Vertical Alignment option to Notes > Positioning. Perhaps the options could be Automatic (default), Top, Bottom. Automatic would do what it does not, aligning the sidenote to the note reference while Top and Bottom would stack the notes from top to bottom or bottom to top. They would continue to be in separate frames, there's no need to join them together.

Cheers

[Intuos5]

27 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

I think this is a good feature suggestion and it could probably be accomplished by adding a Vertical Alignment option to Notes > Positioning. Perhaps the options could be Automatic (default), Top, Bottom. Automatic would do what it does not, aligning the sidenote to the note reference while Top and Bottom would stack the notes from top to bottom or bottom to top. They would continue to be in separate frames, there's no need to join them together.

Thing is, I am not sure whether that then alliws you to align the notes to a different baseline grid. In my example document, the notes' baselinegrid is 3/4 of the main text frame baselinegrid, so you see the notes align with the text every 3rd line. This allows me to put more text in the notes while confining overall size on my layout.

You see, if every sidenote were to be in its own frame, I wouldn't be able to align them to a different baselinegrid without manual adjustments for each sidenote/ frame.

[Old Bruce]

1 hour ago, Intuos5 said:

Thing is, I am not sure whether that then allows you to align the notes to a different baseline grid. 

Then turn off the Align to baseline and use Exact for the leading in the Sidenote text's Paragraph Style.

[Intuos5]

47 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

Then turn off the Align to baseline and use Exact for the leading in the Sidenote text's Paragraph Style.

Then the first sidenote would have a different start then the rest. But other than that, it should do.