Drop Cap enabled paragraph hides footnote

[Kippo]

I'm formatting a book with each initial paragraph of a chapter enabling a drop cap. One chapter has a footnote in that paragraph and the footnote will not display at the bottom of the page. I can't find a setting to fix the issue.

[MikeTO]

I'm unable to duplicate that issue. As long as there is space on the page for both the drop cap and the footnote, they both display fine for me.

However, there is a known bug with invisible footnotes so this might have nothing to do with drop caps and that part might just be a coincidence. If you're able to share the document here I will take a look at it for you. If not, here is what you can do to figure this out:

1. Click in the paragraph with the note reference marker. Using the Layers panel, expand the text frame's layer if it's not already expanded and look for the footnote's layer. It will still be there even if you can't see it on the page. Select the layer and look for its X-handles (the locked size handles shown for a footnote). Are they where they should be? If you can't see them, zoom out a bit. Are they off the page?
2. If this is the invisible footnote issue, the handles will likely appear somewhere other than where they should be, possibly a bit below or even to the left or right of the page. The only thing you can do to get an invisible footnote to appear is to fiddle with it. Try adding or removing text - for now, trying adding a few blank lines to the footnote to make it taller and see what Publisher does.

I have the same problem with invisible sidenotes and I can usually force a sidenote to appear by adding blank lines. However, this workaround isn't useful for footnotes because then you end up with whitespace at the bottom of the text frame. Sadly, there isn't a useful workaround for footnotes. When I had this issue once in my own book with footnotes, I had to edit the text of the paragraph containing the note marker and the text of the footnote over and over until I forced the footnote to appear. And then all that effort might be wasted if you edit text before the note and that one is no longer an issue, but another note becomes one that is invisible. This can be frustrating.

Good luck!

[Kippo]

Thanks, Mike. I think this is what you told me to look for:

It looks like the X handles are where they belong. The initial text in the footnote layer is the correct text. Luckily, this is the only instance so far of this. But I'm only in chapter 4 of 20 chapters, so we'll see. Does this look like the invisible footnote issue you mentioned? Not sure from your remedy #2 just how to get past this.

 

[R C-R]

I may have totally misunderstood your problem, but the layer selected in the Layer panel has its visibility turned off. Click on the tiny grey dot to its left to make it visible,

[Kippo]

The toggle will not activate - it remains grayed out. If I delete the footnote and try to add a new one, I get a footnote text field that is below the defined text box. Not sure where to turn from here:

 

[Kippo]

Here is the file up to the problem point. Deleted all pages after.

Dix-huit Versets3-footnote issue.afpub

[R C-R]

25 minutes ago, Kippo said:

The toggle will not activate - it remains grayed out.

So I see, although for me it very briefly lights up but immediately goes back to invisible. Moreover, Pinning shows "no options" &  Float & UnPin are greyed out. Finally, I can't even move it out of its parent & it takes two tries to delete it.

My guess is it is corrupted somehow but I have no idea how to fix it.

[MikeTO]

It's not corrupted, this is the invisible note bug (AF-279).

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

You can tell it's this because if you delete the first two paragraphs (Chapter and Title) or the third paragraph (Opening Scripture) then the footnote will appear and its visibility toggle will be switched one.

This will appear to happen randomly but it's not random, it's a bug in the code that decides whether a footnote will fit on the page. You and I can look at the page and know that note 26 will fit perfectly, but Publisher doesn't always think so. The reason is complex, but you have Split Notes enabled and it's trying to fit part of note 27 on the same page. The reference mark for note 27 is on the first line of the next page and it's trying to fit that line, the next line (the last line of the paragraph), and at least one line of note 27 on the page. That doesn't all fit so the last two lines of the paragraph are forced to the next page as they should be, along with that footnote. But for whatever reason, Publisher forgets to display note 26 which does fit.

I can make it appear by adding blank lines as I mentioned above. The steps are:

1. Open the document
2. Select the footnote using the Layers panel
3. Now that its x-handles are visible, click in the footnote
4. Press Down Arrow enough times to be sure that you're at the end of its text
5. Press Return 3 times. That was enough for me to make the footnote appear. If that doesn't happen for you, press it again.

This works because the footnote is now so large that it makes any attempt to fit the next footnote on the page moot. But it's not a good workaround.

One more thought: Your footnotes don't consistently have footnote style "footnote text" applied to them. If you want that applied to all of them, you can do it with the Notes panel (Format > In Note Text > Note Body Style). But the style is defined as a numbered paragraph so maybe you didn't intend to apply it to all of them. For footnote 27, you've applied the style and turn overridden the numbered list part of it.

Good luck!

[Kippo]

Mike, great to understand the issue. I'll try your workaround. I refining as I go, so I'll get the footnote style tightened up. Thanks!

[Kippo]

Mike, I tried your workaround on the first instance I have of this disappearing footnote and it doesn't look very good. I've formatted 1/3 of my book and I have three instances of this issue. Is there any idea when this issue may be resolved?

[MikeTO]

1 hour ago, Kippo said:

Mike, I tried your workaround on the first instance I have of this disappearing footnote and it doesn't look very good. I've formatted 1/3 of my book and I have three instances of this issue. Is there any idea when this issue may be resolved?

No, there's been no update for this bug which was reported two years ago. It's not an issue for endnotes. It is an issue for sidenotes but while it's tedious to find them and you have to search for them every time you print or export, it's usually easy enough to fix a missing sidenote. But for footnotes, it's a significant issue. You can find them, just like sidenotes, but to fix them, you may have to edit copy which may not be something you an do.

[Kippo]

Do you know if anyone has tried simply placing an art box over the page base where the missing footnote should be? I've finished formatting my current book and have 2 missing footnotes. The workaround you proposed looks lousy and stands out like a sore thumb. So using the Artistic Text tool seems a likely band-aid until the problem is deemed worthy of fixing. Has this been tried and does it work?

[MikeTO]

@Kippo You might want to try opening your document in 2.6 beta 3027. Somebody said it was fixed but I haven't tried it myself.

Make a backup copy of your document before doing this because 2.6 files can't be opened in 2.5.

[Kippo]

I'll give it a try. This post seems to support that possibility:

Here's a list of the bugs which have been fixed in the beta build 2.6.0.3027

Footnotes become invisible if the last footnote on the page is shifted onward by flow control