Endnotes To Footnotes Bugs - multiples instances; columns

[stevenrowat]

Hi,
In brief: Ludicrously major problems converting 70 endnotes to footnotes in a 120-page document. I get the following three or four bugs:
1. Clustered Footnotes (not 'on one line' in FN style) appear doubled, tripled, or quadrupled, and have other changes (italics get reversed, and automatic numbers have different values).
2. Footnotes in a '2-column same-page' section appear at bottom of column, not bottom of page.
3. 2-column same-page section becomes seriously unbalanced (even though it was close to balanced with endnotes).

I've reproduced this on three separate attempts to convert my document from endnotes to footnotes. It looks hopeless, but maybe something can be done. Here are my detailed steps on the most recent attempt:

1. Remove paragraph styles from Endnotes.
2. Select all ENdnotes, and select "Footnote" in bottom popup.
3. Most footnotes appear in correct position, one on each line (as specified in Footnotes style).
4. Note Bugs 2&3 (from above list) have already appeared:
Bug 3: two-column section on one page, with footnote, has become completely unbalanced.
Bug 2: Footnotes from such two-column sections appear at end of column, not at foot of page.
5. Close and open to ensure these changes hold. They do.
6. Now change Footer style to remove 'one note per line', so footnotes will cluster. They do. Close and re-open.
7. Bug 1 now shows: all the footnotes are shown doubled and tripled (or even quadrupled), and the italic status of some of the words is reversed as well. [Note also strange exception: the footnotes at the bottom of the column of Bug 2 are NOT doubled.] Note also that automatic page references in the tripled footnotes are different pages (ie, the doubled ones should be identical, but they aren't).

Images of this strange behaviour sent to your feedback address.

Nisus 2.01

[stevenrowat]

In an additional test, I produced the behaviour of Bug 1 (the multiples) much more simply as follows:

1. Keeping original Endnotes of document (no change to Footnotes this time), change Endnote style to multiple per line (uncheck 'one per line').
2. Quit and re-open.
3. The entire list of 70 endnotes has copied about 25 times! Adding 25 extra pages to the end of the document.
4. The same other oddities are there -- italics change back and forth, etc.

I also tried this after stripping the Endnotes down to bare text -- removing Paragraph styles, Character styles, automatic numbers, and attributes. Same thing happened.

[Next day edit:] I've also figured out:
--problem doesn't happen with a new blank file
--problem still happens when I cut my document down to 1 blank page with zero text and then add two footnotes.

So, my guess is that it's either a file corruption or something about my document styles. I sent the 1 blank page to your other address. I'm pretty much stuck at this point, so I hope you can address this soon. Good luck! .

s.r.

[martin]

Hi Steven,

I've replied to your direct feedback privately via email, but will reply here as well for completeness:

1. Clustered Footnotes (not 'on one line' in FN style) appear doubled, tripled, or quadrupled, and have other changes (italics get reversed, and automatic numbers have different values).

The cause of this unwanted duplication is the table of contents (TOC). Your document's "Normal" style has been configured to enforce TOC inclusion (at level 4). Your footnote style is based on Normal, so that means the footnotes are also marked for TOC inclusion. This is technically not allowed by NWP and triggers the bug. We'll look at getting this fixed.

If you remove the TOC inclusion from your Normal style, the duplication won't continue, though unfortunately you would have to delete any unwanted text that had already spawned. Note: simply adding a "do not include in TOC" attribute to the Footnote style doesn't prevent the bug.

2. Footnotes in a '2-column same-page' section appear at bottom of column, not bottom of page.

This is currently behaving as intended: footnotes appear within the individual body columns. Perhaps once we allow the user to set the number of columns in the footnotes area we can also allow them to choose where they appear (within the body column or at the end of the page).

3. 2-column same-page section becomes seriously unbalanced (even though it was close to balanced with endnotes).

This is unfortunately a known limitation: column balancing is disabled when footnotes are present.

I hope that helps. Thanks again for taking time to prepare and submit your feedback reports!