Footnotes/Endnotes

[garrettm30]

15 minutes ago, Peter Falkenberg Brown said:

Unfortunately, the in-text numbers lose their superscript style, so that has to be added, but at least the numbers don't have to be inserted.

 

That might be relatively painless to fix with a quick regular expression find and replace.

[Peter Falkenberg Brown]

2 hours ago, garrettm30 said:

That might be relatively painless to fix with a quick regular expression find and replace.

Hi Garrett,

That would be a great thing to do.

But it might be a wee bit dicey because the variables involved do not have clear limits, e.g.

word2\s word3\r\n word4— word"5 and probably many other combinations besides.

And, I'm sure there are cases where you'd have a number next to text that is NOT a superscript, e.g.

scientific_text75

Of course, if the search and replace was prompted, where you could hit next, that would help a lot.

If someone figures that out, do make it available! 🙂

Peter

 

 

[Pat49]

Thank you Peter Brown.  This is still a bit much due to the size of my document.  I am pondering what to do.  I do appreciated everyone's responses.

3 hours ago, Peter Falkenberg Brown said:

Hi Pat, and all,

I posted this back in January. It's not perfect, but it *is* a way to paste text *with* footnote/endnote numbers, and then past the footnotes or endnotes as a block.

Note: Publisher has a key combo for changing a selected number to a superscript: ctrl+shift+=.....

===

 

 

 

[Peter Falkenberg Brown]

57 minutes ago, Pat49 said:

Thank you Peter Brown.  This is still a bit much due to the size of my document.  I am pondering what to do.  I do appreciated everyone's responses.

You're welcome, Pat!

Peter

[garrettm30]

13 hours ago, Peter Falkenberg Brown said:

That would be a great thing to do.

But it might be a wee bit dicey because the variables involved do not have clear limits, e.g.

The idea was that one could make a regular expression to fit the nature of the text, not to attempt to have a one-size-fits-all solution. That is the beauty of regular expressions. In some cases, it might be as simple as selecting only numerals with [0-9]+ if numerals are only used for footnote references in a given text. However, this pattern below would fit many cases, I would think. It will select any numeral that comes at the end of a word following a letter or punctuation.

(?<=[[:alpha:][:punct:]])[0-9]+\b

 

[garrettm30]

P.S. Of course, that pattern I just gave is not infallible. One example that comes to mind: if you have decimals in the text, it would treat the portion after a decimal as a superscript. Depending on the text, you would need to either adapt the pattern for the text (maybe exclude the cases where a superscript precedes certain punctuation), click to replace one-by-one (still faster than selecting manually), or run a second find/replace to clean up the fringe cases. In the case of numbers with decimals, you could search for…

(?<=[0-9]\.)[0-9]+\b

…to select those numbers that are decimals to undo the superscript from the first pass of find/replace.

I have no doubt the pattern could be improved upon, but that is just to give the idea.

[OsmanB]

Hi,

There is no footnote adding feature in the Affinity Publisher program. Are there any plugins for this? It is a big problem when preparing books.

[Peter Falkenberg Brown]

On 5/15/2020 at 10:01 AM, garrettm30 said:

The idea was that one could make a regular expression to fit the nature of the text, not to attempt to have a one-size-fits-all solution. That is the beauty of regular expressions. In some cases, it might be as simple as selecting only numerals with [0-9]+ if numerals are only used for footnote references in a given text. However, this pattern below would fit many cases, I would think. It will select any numeral that comes at the end of a word following a letter or punctuation.

(?<=[[:alpha:][:punct:]])[0-9]+\b

 

Dear Garrett,

I love it when other people create regular expressions, because, even though I'm a Perl and PHP programmer focusing on web database applications (https://datavarius.com), my brain freezes into a block of ice when I look at RegEx code. To me, it's kind of like looking at raw Postscript code. It takes a special kind of person to love it. 🙂

So... thank you! It worked for me!
For the sake of documenting the process, for anyone interested, these are the steps I followed:

* I positioned the cursor where I wanted to start the search
* I hit the Text/Find menu
* In the Find data field, I pasted your code:

(?<=[[:alpha:][:punct:]])[0-9]+\b

* I clicked on the gear icon next to Find and selected Regular Expression
* I clicked on the gear icon next to Replace with and selected the Format option
* In the Format dialogue box, I selected "Position and Transform"
* In the box on the right I selected Superscript and clicked Okay
* The word "Superscript" then appeared under the Replace field

? I wonder if there's a code we could type into the replace field to denote superscript rather than go through those hoops?

* I then hit find and it accurately prompted me, and replaced the two samples I had, with superscript formatting.

=> It would be great if we could save this as a macro, but I don't see anywhere that Publisher has macros.

Thanks again, very much, for putting that regex together!

I think that combined with my earlier posted method of pasting in HTML with the endnote numbers, this might be a relatively painless way to insert endnotes and change the formatting to superscript. Footnotes on individual pages are more complex for pasting the actual footnotes, but your regex would change the numbers inside the text in both cases.

Peter
 

[dominik]

On 5/16/2020 at 4:56 AM, OsmanB said:

Hi,

There is no footnote adding feature in the Affinity Publisher program. Are there any plugins for this? It is a big problem when preparing books.

Hello @OsmanB and welcome to the forum.

Footnotes are not supported in APub at the moment. This is the reason why this thread was started. Plugins are also not supported by APub. This just as not been implemented yet (and we do not know if and when this will come).

So, this thread has some interesting information on how to create footnotes manually in APub but it is just a replacement without any automatic updating of the numbering of footnotes if you change the order or number of them afterwards.

Cheers,
d.

[MJWHM]

On 5/17/2020 at 7:26 AM, dominik said:

Hello @OsmanB and welcome to the forum.

Footnotes are not supported in APub at the moment. This is the reason why this thread was started. Plugins are also not supported by APub. This just as not been implemented yet (and we do not know if and when this will come).

So, this thread has some interesting information on how to create footnotes manually in APub but it is just a replacement without any automatic updating of the numbering of footnotes if you change the order or number of them afterwards.

Cheers,
d.

It is 18 months since this question was originally asked. The footnotes and endnotes were a feature of Pageplus and allowed me to publish several items, including one tome of nearly 600 pages. This is pretty fundamental stuff for publishing anything remotely academic. How much longer must we wait?

[Last Chance]

I still cannot understand why an interim measure of endnotes cannot be implemented. This is a relatively simple process as all the notes are collated at the end of the chapter or book, so there is no need to continually shuffle the page content to accommodate footnotes.

[MJWHM]

1 minute ago, Last Chance said:

I still cannot understand why an interim measure of endnotes cannot be implemented. This is a relatively simple process as all the notes are collated at the end of the chapter or book, so there is no need to continually shuffle the page content to accommodate footnotes.

Having spent many hours working with AP on my new book, which will easily be several hundred pages, I find myself dusting off PagePlus and seeing whether I can do what I actually want to do. Also looking at MS Publisher.

[dominik]

29 minutes ago, MJWHM said:

It is 18 months since this question was originally asked.

Yes, and nobody said that this feature will be implemented in this period of time. It's a fact that this is one of the features that was decided to be implemented later. Good to see you can use PagePlus to accomplish your task 🙂

d.

[MJWHM]

22 minutes ago, dominik said:

Yes, and nobody said that this feature will be implemented in this period of time. It's a fact that this is one of the features that was decided to be implemented later. Good to see you can use PagePlus to accomplish your task 🙂

d.

Not the most constructive reply, but possibly not intended to be. If it is possible to generate index entries, then it should be a simple procedure to generate some sort of cross-reference system, as it was in PP. If dominik is presumably content with something that is not suitable for serious book-publishing beyond simple chapter-headings and the like, will need to address this sort of question in a constructive and timely fashion AP is to break into that genre for those who want a more powerful product. AP was brought in in a blaze of enthusiasm, and I have all of the Affinity products in hopes of improvement, but it is almost as if the company has given up on addressing fairly basic stuff. I simply do not understand the apparent complacency.

I would like to hear from the company rather than someone who is apparently content with a lesser product than was replaced. There are good points about AP, but they need to be extended.

[NaulisJakke]

However, even after 18 months are still left in complete darkness: it seems that we have no idea if this is going to be implemented at all. It is this total muteness that I find incomprehensible and disrespectful: we get to read so many advancements on other areas but this elementary topic of book publishing seems to be left in a permanent black hole. I work on a Mac, so I cannot resort to MS Publisher or PagePlus, so it is either Apub or the infamous InDesign subscription. I would whole-heartedly welcome an interim solution of endnotes or something like that. Main point is this: you cannot keep people in the dark forever. It is not fair. 

[Last Chance]

Agreed @MJWHM and @NaulisJakke. For anyone involved with the serious end of publishing then foot/endnotes are absolutely essential. If you can create an index, then endnotes is simply an adaptation of that. A little more consideration from Serif would certainly not go amiss.

[dominik]

11 minutes ago, MJWHM said:

Not the most constructive reply, but possibly not intended to be.

Sorry, I did not mean to be not constructive, but perhaps I was 😯   I was more thinking about the chance that you have a possibility to accomplish your project with PP.

I do not deny the need for foot- or endnotes. It's just that they cannot include all features in the initial release and they had to make their mind up what is a good starting point and what is best added over time. I do not have the knowledge if this feature is basic to implement. From what I read about programming I do suspect many things thal look basic are not at all. Especially if something has to be implemented future proof.

Apart from that it is Serif's policy not (or only seldom) to comment in this section of the forum about features to come. As said in other places a sure indication that they are about to release a new feature soon is the public beta. And so far foot- and endnotes are not part of it.

Cheers,
d.

[Granddaddy]

Surely it is obvious by now that Serif's product imaginings are far beyond their reach. Years ago they claimed to be the future of photo editing, but that could have come to pass only if their competitors had suspended development. The company refuses to explain in what ways its products will be further developed. It has failed to foster relationships with companies that could support users of Serif products, witness the dearth of simple image viewers that can read APhoto's embedded thumbnails. Serif staff themselves claim they have no idea what new features, improvements in old features, or even bug fixes might be in the works. Instead we are told to try the latest beta version that might foreshadow minor changes in the next decimal point release. Then we are warned that files created with beta versions may not be usable in the final release as file formats might change without warning. As an amateur and hobbyist I am satisfied to play around, gain experience, and use Affinity software for a couple of things less well done by others. It's always fun to tell a friend you are using software that most people have never heard of. Were I a professional whose livelihood depended on my software tools, I would not see Serif as providing a robust foundation with a clearly planned pathway to the future.

[MJWHM]

1 hour ago, dominik said:

Sorry, I did not mean to be not constructive, but perhaps I was 😯   I was more thinking about the chance that you have a possibility to accomplish your project with PP.

I do not deny the need for foot- or endnotes. It's just that they cannot include all features in the initial release and they had to make their mind up what is a good starting point and what is best added over time. I do not have the knowledge if this feature is basic to implement. From what I read about programming I do suspect many things thal look basic are not at all. Especially if something has to be implemented future proof.

Apart from that it is Serif's policy not (or only seldom) to comment in this section of the forum about features to come. As said in other places a sure indication that they are about to release a new feature soon is the public beta. And so far foot- and endnotes are not part of it.

Cheers,
d.

Thanks dominik. Glad you did not take offence. I still think that something so fundamental should have been resolved by now.

[MJWHM]

27 minutes ago, Granddaddy said:

Surely it is obvious by now that Serif's product imaginings are far beyond their reach. Years ago they claimed to be the future of photo editing, but that could have come to pass only if their competitors had suspended development. The company refuses to explain in what ways its products will be further developed. It has failed to foster relationships with companies that could support users of Serif products, witness the dearth of simple image viewers that can read APhoto's embedded thumbnails. Serif staff themselves claim they have no idea what new features, improvements in old features, or even bug fixes might be in the works. Instead we are told to try the latest beta version that might foreshadow minor changes in the next decimal point release. Then we are warned that files created with beta versions may not be usable in the final release as file formats might change without warning. As an amateur and hobbyist I am satisfied to play around, gain experience, and use Affinity software for a couple of things less well done by others. It's always fun to tell a friend you are using software that most people have never heard of. Were I a professional whose livelihood depended on my software tools, I would not see Serif as providing a robust foundation with a clearly planned pathway to the future.

Perhaps this is the issue. The software may not be intended for professional results, but given the launch comments, and even the enthusiasm meted out by such respectable organs as Compute Actuve for Affinity Photos, they must know the user base and its requirements. The daft thing is that to get on the Apple bandwagon they seem to have abandoned or ignored the needs of longstanding users. I have been a Serif devotees for more years than I can remember.

[dominik]

30 minutes ago, Granddaddy said:

As an amateur and hobbyist I am satisfied to play around, gain experience, and use Affinity software for a couple of things less well done by others. It's always fun to tell a friend you are using software that most people have never heard of. Were I a professional whose livelihood depended on my software tools, I would not see Serif as providing a robust foundation with a clearly planned pathway to the future.

Hi @Granddaddy,

I want to contribute that I was able to make money with AD and APh over the last (almost) four years as a replacement to my (aged) CS6. I am more of a one person operation and do not have the need to share files with others to work together who use different tools. I myself see and believe that Serif has provided a robust foundation to a 'Suite' that will within it's time of development be very comprehensive ... and refreshingly innovative. We just have to take into account that this will take it's time.

Cheers,
d.

[NaulisJakke]

This never occurred to me until now: I always assumed that the long delay and concomitant silence was due to technical problems or lack of coding resource or something like that but now I can’t help but entertain the thought that there is a strategy involved. Playing devil’s advocate, namely, wouldn’t it be also possible that this long silence on behalf of Serif is just waiting for this whole conversation to die out. If this is a strech it is IMO  a justified strech, because this is, after all, what you get by leaving your devotees completely in the dark for a long time. Nevertheless, at this point it would be desirable for Serif to release some sort of statement concerning this matter to prevent needless speculation and conspiracy theories. 

[sfriedberg]

I think you guys are over-thinking this.  Serif used to publish an informal roadmap and realized that was a mistake, so they no longer make promises about features that are not in-hand to be delivered.  As a software developer (day job), I understand this completely.  In fact, at my employer we had to stop publishing an in-house roadmap, because other divisions of the same company were taking our loose intentions about eventual features as solid commitments to a fixed calendar schedule.  So even inside the company we now announce only what we are committing to deliver for the next 6-month release.

As a user, I am confident that Serif will eventually deliver on all the pinned, "must have" topics in this forum, and quite a few other useful things as well.  Eventually.  In the meantime, I do things the hard way, use other software packages, or convince my clients to change their requirements.  Does that mean that Affinity Publisher is not ready for everything I want to do?  Yes.  Does that mean there's some conspiracy of silence, intentional disrespect to the customer base, or other overwrought silliness?  No, I don't think so.

[Ralph]

I contributed to this thread about 100 (sic!) pages ago.

Like so many others I simply do not understand why such basic functions have been left out. I might feel better if Serif had some sort of explanation.

Together the Apps include a huge range of features, many esoteric, many using concepts that I didn't even know existed. I read the daily questions and am amazed at the intellectual prowess shown by the respondents. I wonder how they ever FOUND the function, never mind understood it and found a use for it.. I've been using DTP software for decades and am still way behind in my understanding of the possibilities of the Affinity apps. So, yes, lots of praise and incredulity.

But I don't understand why Serif hasn't prioritised something as basic as Footnotes/Endnotes nearer the top of the list. As 'sfriedberg' says, there are lots of "must have" topics in the forum and a roadmap can be counter-productive. But that's not the point. It is why Footnotes are so far down the road.  I'm feeling that putting Footnotes way way way down the priority list is a bit like says "we'll deal with files of more than 50K in Phase xx"  (where xx is a large number!). Or "you can only use the pica font until next year but you do have 14 different ways of aligning it to a baseline grid".

In mathematical terms, the Apps solve complex (imaginary) equations - but occasionally can't deal with (x+1)(x-1)

Please somebody explain !!!

[MJWHM]

1 hour ago, sfriedberg said:

I think you guys are over-thinking this.  Serif used to publish an informal roadmap and realized that was a mistake, so they no longer make promises about features that are not in-hand to be delivered.  As a software developer (day job), I understand this completely.  In fact, at my employer we had to stop publishing an in-house roadmap, because other divisions of the same company were taking our loose intentions about eventual features as solid commitments to a fixed calendar schedule.  So even inside the company we now announce only what we are committing to deliver for the next 6-month release.

As a user, I am confident that Serif will eventually deliver on all the pinned, "must have" topics in this forum, and quite a few other useful things as well.  Eventually.  In the meantime, I do things the hard way, use other software packages, or convince my clients to change their requirements.  Does that mean that Affinity Publisher is not ready for everything I want to do?  Yes.  Does that mean there's some conspiracy of silence, intentional disrespect to the customer base, or other overwrought silliness?  No, I don't think so.

I completely get the need for a degree of security about what is in the pipeline, and I am reminded of the anecdote about a company in which one team was proudly pushing a brand new design and another team was saying there was a new one just down the line. That is not quite the case here.

My gripe is not that there is a conspiracy of silence (not my thought at all) but rather an apparent lack of concern about the needs of the end-users.