Dealing with footnotes in Word documents
Posted: Tue Dec 05, 2023 11:55 pm
Any one who does long form documents in Word knows the powerful endnote and footnote facility which allows users of the document to click and jump from text to footnote and back. Converting that to an html document is not simple or tidy. I've often simply removed the links and let people scroll manually, but that's hardly ideal in a very long document.
And when you do put the endnotes in, you may find that a "sticky" menu at the top of a page also hides the links. You click and find the footnote you want is under the menu bar.
This is a niche work around that allows for the menu bar and also provides a quick and dirty method to convert from Word endnotes to endnotes that work in a CMSMS website.
1. Write your document in Word, adding endnotes as per normal. I find it's best to use only Bold, Italic, indents, URL links to the web, and endnotes. This will then paste into a CMSMS content page. You will need to manually recreate the indents with blockquotes, and insert images into the text. (Untick the Paste as Text option)
If you have a sticky menu (I'm using a modified Portage theme) then add the following class to your Stylesheet.
The trick now is to use the CMSMS content block tools menu and to copy out the full html text from the page which CMSMS has created there into another, temporary, word document.
You will find in that new document, two pieces of code which are repeated for each endnote. My example is using endnote 6.
The link to footnotes has this form:
(That's for note 6.)
And endnote 6 will be:
I use Ctrl-F in Word to search for:
For the links to endnotes I paste in:
This adds in a superscript command, the internal URL, and a return id tag.
What you need to do each time is replace the six, 6, and sixtext with the appropriate number; ie seven, 7, and seven text, for the next endnote. Then delete the code which Word inserted, and move to the next endnote...repeat.
When you get to the actual endnotes themselves, paste in:
Change six, 6 and sixtext for the appropriate number, of course, and then copy and past the acutal text of the end note in place of PlaceFootnoteTextHere. Then remove the Word inserted code. You have created the id tag, and a link back to the text
It's monotonous, but I find I get a rhythm going, and 20 or 30 footnotes is a lot quicker and less onerus than using the CMSMS interface.
The last step is simply to post the code directly back into the html code box, and it's done.
Andrea
Andrea
And when you do put the endnotes in, you may find that a "sticky" menu at the top of a page also hides the links. You click and find the footnote you want is under the menu bar.
This is a niche work around that allows for the menu bar and also provides a quick and dirty method to convert from Word endnotes to endnotes that work in a CMSMS website.
1. Write your document in Word, adding endnotes as per normal. I find it's best to use only Bold, Italic, indents, URL links to the web, and endnotes. This will then paste into a CMSMS content page. You will need to manually recreate the indents with blockquotes, and insert images into the text. (Untick the Paste as Text option)
If you have a sticky menu (I'm using a modified Portage theme) then add the following class to your Stylesheet.
Code: Select all
.anchor {
padding-top: 100px;
margin-top: -100px;
}
You will find in that new document, two pieces of code which are repeated for each endnote. My example is using endnote 6.
The link to footnotes has this form:
Code: Select all
<a href="#_edn6" name="_ednref6">[vi]</a>
And endnote 6 will be:
Code: Select all
<a href="#_ednref6" name="_edn6">[vi]</a>
and work my way down through the document.<a href="#_
For the links to endnotes I paste in:
Code: Select all
<sup>{anchor anchor="six" text='6'}</sup> <a id="sixtext" class="anchor"></a>
What you need to do each time is replace the six, 6, and sixtext with the appropriate number; ie seven, 7, and seven text, for the next endnote. Then delete the code which Word inserted, and move to the next endnote...repeat.
When you get to the actual endnotes themselves, paste in:
Code: Select all
<a id="six" class="anchor"></a> 6. PasteFootnoteTextHere {anchor anchor='sixtext' text=' (Back)'}
It's monotonous, but I find I get a rhythm going, and 20 or 30 footnotes is a lot quicker and less onerus than using the CMSMS interface.
The last step is simply to post the code directly back into the html code box, and it's done.
Andrea
Andrea