The scripts described on this page deal with footnotes and columns in two ways:
To accomplish either of these two tasks, the same three scripts are used: one script to convert the notes, another to thread notes, and a third one to update the note references at a later stage if notes are added or removed. I'll first illustrate the first type of conversion; the second type is only a slight variant.
The method described here is partly a manual method in that it requires some fiddling with text frames whenever the text changes, and it takes a script to update the note references. But although you lose some flexibility, you also gain some. For example, a clear advantage is that with these semi-automatic notes you can adjust the space between notes and text per page (when you use InDesign's footnotes, that space is a single document-wide setting).
There are four InDesign files in the download and three scripts. The InDesign files can be used for practise and are the files used in the screenshots elsewhere on this page:
The two types of footnote are really the same in that in both types, InDesign's footnotes are taken out of footnotes and placed in one continuous, separate, story which is threaded at the foot of the relevant pages. The footnote references are converted to normal numbers. There is therefore no longer any relation between the footnotes and their references -- but as you'll see, that's not a problem at all. Details follow.
You cannot set InDesign's footnotes in columns, not even in CS5 with its column-splitting paragraphs. To get columns in footnotes you therefore need to convert the notes and place them in separate text frames at the foot of the page. Laborious work, but it can be made a lot easier with a couple of scripts.
Take the following document (the first page of footnotes_in_columns). The notes are standard InDesign footnotes:
To change these notes into notes in columns, run the footnotes_columns_convert script. The result is shown in the next screenshot. The script adds a tinted background to the note references so that they're easy to spot; this is defined in the character style used for the references and is intended to make the placement of the notes easier; to remove the background or change its appearance, just edit the character style.
The script has moved all the footnotes into a separate story and has placed that story in one text frame at the foot of the page (that's the frame selected in the screenshot). That frame is overset: you now need to size the frame so that notes match the references and you need to thread the rest of the notes. This sounds like a drag but it's not so bad at all. I've done it a few times now and it works pretty smoothly. Anyway, the footnotes_columns_add script will make this easy. It works as follows.
First resize the note frame so that the number of notes in that frame matches the number of notes on that page. This is done in the usual way: grab the top-centre frame handle and drag the top of the frame down until note 5 has disappeared from the frame.
Now turn to the next page with notes and select the text frame that contains one or more notes. We want to add a text frame at the foot of this page and thread it to the frame that we've just resized. This is done with the footnotes_columns_add script.
With the frame selected, run the footnotes_columns_add script. This will add a frame at the foot of the page and thread it to the text frame that contains the preceding notes. The script tries to fit the frame to the correct size so that the number of notes matches the number of note references, but often there's still something to adjust. The script selects the new frame so you can resize it straight away if necessary. From here on you continue until the last footnote.
If the notes in a frame don't balance, as in the next screenshot:
then create an empty line after, in this case, note 7. Do as follows:
(Applying a keep option to the note style is in principle a better and more elegant solution, but the note frame's vertical justification is set to Bottom, so keep options lead to bad results. Keep options could be made to work but that requires a lot of scripting which I may still do in future.)
Adding and removing footnotes is simple. To add a new footnote, do this:
To remove a note do as follows:
If you're not interested in the details of the script you can happily skip this section, but it may be helpful in the unlikely event (!) you run into problems.
The script that converts the notes first organises a few styles in the document:
Note: Column-spanning notes are standard feature in InDesign from CC2017.
In text set in columns, InDesign always places footnotes in the column in which they are cued: it's not possible to let the notes span columns or to place all notes in one of the columns. The script enables you to do that.
To see how this works, open the footnotes_span_columns file (use the INX file in CS3, the IDML file in CS4 and later). The first page, with InDesign's footnotes, looks like this:
Before you start, in the Object Styles panel, change the object style footnotes_columns to set the number of columns to 1. Then run the footnotes_columns_convert script. The result looks as follows:
The notes are collected into a single story and a frame has been placed at the foot of the page with the first note. That frame is overset: the remainder of the notes don't fit and need to be placed on the appropriate pages.
Adjust the note frame by dragging the top-centre handle (up, in this case) until note 4 fits the page, then turn to the next page. From here on, everything works as described in the section on placing footnotes in columns, above.
21 April 2011: Fixed some bugs in the convert and add scripts.
15 March 2011: Made inserting new notes a bit easier.
13 March 2011: (Re)posted.
Download sample documents and scripts (~115 Kb zip-file)
Installing and running scripts
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