Footnotes/Endnotes

[Patrick Connor]

Hey guys,

Enough about PPX9, let's not take this thread any further off topic.

[PatrickOfLondon]

8 minutes ago, Pyanepsion said:

Hello, Patrick of London.

It is unfortunate that Serif still has not finished some major functions of desktop publishing, but that does not justify going back to an antiquity such as PagePlus X9! That would fall from Charybdis into Scylla.

Antiquities can be very peaceful places; and PagePlus X9 is a much, much calmer place to be than Charybdis.....

But let's hope Affinity Publisher is getting closer to reliable Footnote/Endnote capability than I suspect it actually is.

[PatrickOfLondon]

12 minutes ago, Patrick Connor said:

Hey guys,

Enough about PPX9, let's not take this thread any further off topic.

Patrick, just saw yours.... no more from me on PPX9.

 

[Sandy Rivkin]

Yet, the fact remains that I can not use Affinity Publisher, (purchased for this project) to finish and publish my project and will continue to use the software I started with. I am a big supporter of Serif and have all their software before Affinity and will continue to wait, hope and monitor this discussion.

[spinko]

1+ for footnotes, thank you.

[Chris McKay]

Yes please to foot notes, end notes.  Any even slightly academic work will use these.  Publisher without these will lock out and academic use.  Keep up the good work development team.  I really like Publisher. 

Chris
(ex InDesign user)

[cyberlizard]

any news yet?

[Peter Rennoldson]

Foot notes - Yes please.

[Last Chance]

I can only add my name to the list of contributors requiring footnotes or endnotes - the latter being more important in my case. The book I am currently writing has in some cases, over 1,000 endnotes in a single chapter: imagine having to transpose these over. Sure, these will be reduced as some are being used to keep track of some incredibly intricate research, but I cannot hope to use Publisher (currently trying the trial version) unless this issue is addressed. I do think Affinity Publisher is a brilliant program and has many excellent features but without footnotes and endnotes, it's not a runner.

[Patrick Connor]

@Peter Rennoldson & @Last Chance

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums  thanks for your contribution to this very popular feature request thread.

[Last Chance]

Thanks for the invite, Patrick.

I would like to know the progress Serif is making towards adding this feature as it is just one of two points that are preventing me from purchasing the software.

The other is a proper import of Word DOCX documents. After imported one of the DOCX chapters to my book it managed to scramble some of the Paragraph and Text Styles, which would necessitate editing all the text and paragraph definitions. For example, somehow it decided to use the Times New Roman font, when my default is Zapf Humanist. 

Also, I can't work out why all my text frames have a grey background! Curious ...

One feature I am pleased to see is the Indexing - another crucial feature for me.

Please keep us informed.

[Patrick Connor]

I really cannot say. Any progress on unreleased features is not only rarely mentioned, it is also not part of my role to do so. (though I have been known to hint in the days/weeks before something arrives but rarely longer)

As to errors inporting DOCX, those should be reported in the bugs forum for investigation (unless they relate to unsupported features like footnotes and endnotes  )

[Pyanepsion]

27 minutes ago, Last Chance said:

The other is a proper import of Word DOCX documents.

Hello, Last Chance.

Regardless of the desktop publishing software, it is not a good idea to directly import a Word file, because a a text software is to desktop publishing what is a fast food sandwich to haute cuisine . It's best to create the styles in Affinity Publisher, import all the plain text to Publisher, apply the Normal style, and then reset all styles using Word. This will save you a lot of trouble, especially at the printing press.

Regarding footnotes, end of chapter, end of part, end of book, it is actually a very big fault rather improbable in a software of such a quality.

[A_B_C]

1 hour ago, Last Chance said:

Also, I can't work out why all my text frames have a grey background!

Check View > Studio > Text Frame and see if you applied a grey fill to the text frame.

But it’s always better to create a new thread in the dedicated Questions sections for such questions, as they may … and probably will … be overlooked in a thread like this. 

[Petar Petrenko]

7 hours ago, Pyanepsion said:

Regardless of the desktop publishing software, it is not a good idea to directly import a Word file

The best option is RTF format.

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, Petar Petrenko said:

The best option is RTF format.

Though Serif has said that their RTF importer is older than their .docx importer, and supports fewer features.

[MikeW]

10 hours ago, Pyanepsion said:

Hello, Last Chance.

Regardless of the desktop publishing software, it is not a good idea to directly import a Word file, ...

 

2 hours ago, Petar Petrenko said:

The best option is RTF format.

Well, to me, the best option is tagged text...

But if I didn't use applications that supported tagged text, I would use .docx

[Taumatarea]

I too find footnotes indispensable in setting page numbers for our magazine. I also miss the old 'Efffects' in PagePlus because we could quickly craft vivid advertisements 'on-the-fly' without having to purchase even more software. Similarly with 'cut-outs'.

[Pyanepsion]

Hello, Taumatarea.

Be careful, pagination and footnotes are two different things. The difficulty of programming a footnote is the height of the footnote field, which will vary in height which encroaches on the body of the text, and the footnote must be on the other hand on the same page as the note call.

You will find on this tutorial how to insert a pagination.

https://affinity.serif.com/fr/tutorials/publisher/desktop/video/337266962

[Last Chance]

Guys, the only reason it's "not a good idea" to import a DOCX is because Affinity Publisher does not quite handle it properly - yet. It's not bad, but some of the Styles do get screwed for some reason and apparently the developers are working on it. I learnt this after I sent an email to Serif, to which they replied promptly. But it still imports all the definitions and so can be edited and applied, so a lot easier than using RTF, which would lose all the definitions completely.

As a budget piece of software, though, I am amazed at what Affinity Publisher CAN do! Sure, it will never aspire to be as good as InDesign, which I currently use, but as a replacement it's very hard (impossible?) to beat on price and for this reason, I think I will drop that money pit (InDesign ~£240 per annum) and swap over.

By the time my next book is ready to publish, I'm hoping the footnotes & endnotes will be sorted as that is the only major feature I miss so far. 

Edited November 5, 2019 by Last Chance
spelling

[Pyanepsion]

56 minutes ago, Last Chance said:

the only reason it's "not a good idea" to import a DOCX is because Affinity Publisher does not quite handle it properly

This is a point of view put forward by all manufacturers, because it gives the illusion of being able to transform a text document without effort. It's actually bad whether it's on Indesign, QuarkXPress, Affinity Publisher, etc. because:

1. Paragraph and character styles are of relatively poor quality in word processing software (Write, Page Word, etc. ), as these tools are not designed for printing press.
2. It is common for the word processing file not to be standardized, which often results in differences when using professional equipment.

I spend several hours improving the Word draft from the client's Word document, then paste the entire text into an ASCII editor and then use Word only as a template for preparing the styles of the DTP document.

It is obviously longer than a simple import, but it is very much worth it.

 

[Last Chance]

20 minutes ago, Pyanepsion said:

This is a point of view put forward by all manufacturers, because it gives the illusion of being able to transform a text document without effort. It's actually bad whether it's on Indesign, QuarkXPress, Affinity Publisher, etc. because:

1. Paragraph and character styles are of relatively poor quality in word processing software (Write, Page Word, etc. ), as these tools are not designed for printing press.
2. It is common for the word processing file not to be standardized, which often results in differences when using professional equipment.

I spend several hours improving the Word draft from the client's Word document, then paste the entire text into an ASCII editor and then use Word only as a template for preparing the styles of the DTP document.

It is obviously longer than a simple import, but it is very much worth it.

 

I think we'll have to "agree to disagree" here Pyanepsion  My experience with importing Word DOCX files into InDesign has, on the whole, been very good with little, or no alterations necessary. Importing raw text files of even RTF just creates a lot of work, IMHO. As I said before, Affinity Publisher's handling of Word DOCX files is "OK" as at least all the paragraph and style definitions are included - it's just that the fonts, sizes etc. can (but not always) be altered, which is a simple matter of correcting the definitions.

Generally, this is much better for me when dealing with entire books. My current book is about 300,000 words and this will probably end up nearer 400,000 when completed. I'm not sure how large, or small, your client's documents are, but for a book this size having some of the work done is better than none at all 

[Pedrober]

17 hours ago, MikeW said:

Well, to me, the best option is tagged text...

Without any doubt. Please request that feature...

[MikeW]

1 hour ago, Pedrober said:

Without any doubt. Please request that feature...

Oh, I have.

One can search for the start tags or character tags using grep find/replace, replace with the p.style and c.style and remove the tags currently. But it takes more effort than it ought and doesn't always work properly. And, of course, creation of elements cannot work, so tagged text automation isn't possible.

[NaulisJakke]

I am now well over halfway writing my Ph.D thesis. I use a lot of pictures and graphics and I've been waiting for Publisher in a state of exhilaration. I've been working tirelessly with Designer on iPad (I love working while lying on my bed) and now I'm beginning to take on some heavy duty work on Photo. But there is no way around it: I desperately need those footnotes/endnotes. I have fought with them in InDesign and while there is certainly room for improvement I will settle for something that works in a relatively reliable manner. My problem now is that I am running out of time because the University of Helsinki is breathing on my neck. I sincerely appreciate what you guys in Serif have created, especially Designer is pure joy to work with, but like many others I am also eagerly waiting for footnotes/endnotes so that I can create the best Ph.D thesis in the world.

Cheers

 

Jakke from Finland