Sidenotes disappearing on facing pages in specific circumstances

[mwdiers]

I have a document originally imported from IDML, which contained anchored frames to the left of the main page frame.

I am converting these anchored frames to sidenotes by deleting the anchor (which deletes the anchored frame) and then inserting a sidenote at the same location.

The notes are unnumbered both in the main text, and in the note. The sidenote itself is always a single capital letter, and the text style has all spacing zeroed out so there is no possibility of overflow. The sidenotes are set to always appear left of frame with no gap. The sidenote text is assigned a style that is right-justified, so the entire sidenote is a single letter which always appears directly to the left of the main text frame.

All was going perfectly, until I hit a page where a sidenote is attached to a small bottom paragraph on the left-facing page, followed by a sidenote attached to the top paragraph on the right-facing page. The moment I insert the sidenote on the top paragraph of the right facing page, all sidenotes on the left facing page disappear. If I then delete that just-inserted sidenote on the right page, all the notes on the left page reappear.

The problem only seems to happen when there is a side-note on a short paragraph at the bottom of one frame (2 lines or less), followed by a paragraph with a sidenote at the top of the next page. When I add a single blank line to the left bottom paragraph, all sidenotes reappear. This may be related to widow-orphan controls in the main text.

This will be my workaround for the rare place this problem occurs: Add a blank line to the bottom paragraph, and if necessary extend the frame down so text flow remains the same. This is obviously not ideal.

I have attached a document demonstrating the problem, which occurs on the last two pages. I truncated the original document to just where the issue occurs. You can see the problem if you delete the line break at the bottom of page 58.

 

Sidenote Issue.zip

[MikeTO]

Hi, this is a known issue with sidenotes and footnotes. It's been a problem since notes were introduced in 2.0 and IMO is one of the most serious bugs currently in Publisher because edits you make anywhere in the document might cause notes to disappear later in the document and you'll have no idea it happened. I hope it gets fixed soon.

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/search/&tags=AF-279

Here's how I deal with it:

1. Before printing or exporting, I search for my note text style - I format all my notes with a text style which has the side benefit of making them easier to find
2. I click the Find Next button or shortcut repeatedly and if I find a note that is invisible, I manually tweak it until it's visible. One tip, which works only with sidenotes, is to add some blank lines to the end of the sidenote. That will make it taller which impacts the note fitting and may make the notes appear. Of course, if it's the last note on a page it may then pull the note and the paragraph containing its marker to the next page. Your Flow settings may need to be tweaked.

Good luck

[mwdiers]

Yes, I have a specific side note style, so that helps find these.

In my case, adding blank lines to the side notes does nothing. It is only adding a blank line to the bottom of the main text frame that fixes it, so while annoying, it's not a show stopper. I've run into the footnote issue on another project, and that is much worse, and sometimes nearly impossible to fix.

Interestingly, I've run into two other places with the exact same behavior. It's always when there is a complete paragraph at the bottom of one text frame, followed by another paragraph at the top of the next linked frame, each with a side note. So at least this issue is consistent, easier to find, and easier to fix.

I really hope they fix this soon. I have a few book projects that are depending on this fix. I'd rather tough it out than go back to InDesign. I'm done with Adobe. (Come on, Canva. You got this!)