Footnotes will be the end of me

For all things Mellel

Moderators: Eyal Redler, redlers, Ori Redler

Post Reply
TXCiclista
New to all this
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Mar 31, 2011 9:45 pm

Footnotes will be the end of me

Post by TXCiclista »

I love Mellel, except for how it handles footnotes, which I hate. So given that "footnotes" is considered by the forums to be a word that's "too common" to search for, I'm reduced to posting "blind" (Google's turned up some hits, but not entirely useful).

1. I'm having the strange issue of text copied into footnotes from other sources (e.g. another word processor, or another Mellel doc) retains the "Regular" formatting setting. In an attempt at some of a global fix, I've gone to "Insert > Notes > Edit note attributes," made sure that the "Note Style" for the footnote note stream is set to "Footnote," and ensured that "Note Text Style" is set to "Note Text" for both paragraph and character styles. Upon saving all changes (ir savings the non-changes, as the case my be), I return to my Mellel doc, only to find several cases of a note with the paragraph set to "Note Text," but the Character style set to "Regular +." Is this a bug with Mellel 2.9.1? I honestly cin't find anwhere, in any dialog, where a setting has been ticked that might override the note attributes.

2. The superscript for the note reference is just too small. I've not been able to figure out a way to change it, so help of any sort would be much appreciated here. The Character Style is set to "Regular" with the "superscript" box checked. Do I need to create a "Note Reference" style with a larger font size so that the superscripting doesn't make the number so small? (e.g. a 14pt superscript should be larger than a 12pt) And should I have to do this, or is this something Mellel should be handling?

Thanks in advance for any help.
DRB
Knows everything, can prove it
Posts: 65
Joined: Thu Jan 17, 2008 8:20 am

Re: Footnotes will be the end of me

Post by DRB »

The simplest way to solve your footnote style problem is to place your cursor in the footnote and then click on the "footnote" paragraph style in your paragraph palette. This will force all the text of that footnote to correspond to your preset footnote font details.

The superscript numbers are a different matter. The size of the superscript number is set not by Mellel but by the font designer. If you are dissatisfied with the size of your current superscripted numbers then your only recourse is to use for your footnotes a different font which has a superscript size to your liking, when you configure your character style. Every font has superscripted numbers built in, and the computer program has no choice but to use the ones provided by the font.

Don Broadribb
Declan
Knows everything, can prove it
Posts: 79
Joined: Sun Nov 02, 2008 11:28 am

Re: Footnotes will be the end of me

Post by Declan »

If I'm not mistaken, this question resembles one that I put a while back. I would normally be working from a document compiled from Scrivener, and I found that it was a bit of a hassle doing what the previous poster suggested for each individual footnote. It would be nice to see a smoother solution emerging for this issue. In general, where Mellel seems to fall down is in not providing very flexible selection possibilities. You can't just select all footnotes, and choose a paragraph style for them. Similarly, you can't just choose all text that is in Roman Bold 14pt, and specify that it should all now be Heading 1, or whatever. This means that many of the advantages that Mellel offers are offset by problems of bringing text in from other applications.
Alas.

Declan
DRB
Knows everything, can prove it
Posts: 65
Joined: Thu Jan 17, 2008 8:20 am

Re: Footnotes will be the end of me

Post by DRB »

Actually I think you can do these things.

First of all, you can choose your footnote paragraph style in the Paragraph menu, change the style as you like, and Mellel will automatically change all its footnotes to conform. Likewise the character style.

For changing all Roman Bold 14pt there are two ways:
(1) One is to use the File menu's "Replace Styles" to change all Roman Bold 14pt text with your Heading 1 text style, or whatever, actually quite a simple thing to do.

(2) The other is to use the Find/Replace function, specify that any text in Roman Bold 14 be replaced by...(whatever).

These methods are discussed in great detail in the Beginners Tutorial, and also described in Mellel's Guide.

It is true that a document compiled with one program will usually not transfer into Mellel without having to be tweaked after the transfer is done. This is true of any file in any program that is transferred into any other program. No two programs deal with text and formatting in identical ways. You can always make a macro or set of macros to tweak the imported text the way you want it, either by using Mellel's own File Set system (again, look up the details in the Guide and/or Tutorial). Or you can use a sophisticed macro program such as Keyboard Maestro.

Don Broadribb
Declan
Knows everything, can prove it
Posts: 79
Joined: Sun Nov 02, 2008 11:28 am

Re: Footnotes will be the end of me

Post by Declan »

Alas, I don't think that it is as easy as you suggest. See the following:
http://forum.redlers.com/viewtopic.php? ... lan#p15367
http://forum.redlers.com/viewtopic.php? ... lan#p15265

In brief, it would be great to be able to identify some element of a text in Mellel by certain features (e.g. font, size, colour etc.) (already not so easy) and impose a paragraph style on that text. It would be even better if we could select texts with such features and specify such texts as autotitles.

As for the same being true in any application... well, it's not true in Nisus, where all of *this* is much easier.
Why not use Nisus, then, you ask? Well, I do, for some things, but there are many reasons to prefer Mellel for other things. So its a question of weighing the advantages and the disadvantages of each one for certain jobs.

Declan
nicka
Knows everything, can prove it
Posts: 677
Joined: Thu Oct 20, 2005 2:55 pm
Location: Oslo
Contact:

Re: Footnotes will be the end of me

Post by nicka »

Don you are quite right to say:
For changing all Roman Bold 14pt there are two ways:
(1) One is to use the File menu's "Replace Styles" to change all Roman Bold 14pt text with your Heading 1 text style, or whatever, actually quite a simple thing to do.

(2) The other is to use the Find/Replace function, specify that any text in Roman Bold 14 be replaced by...(whatever).
But the problem (as Declan suggests) is that neither of these allows a paragraph style to be imposed. So there's no quick way of imposing paragraph styles on text generated in some other application. And of course Mellel doesn't bring in paragraph styles that are already there when it opens an rtf file. So altogether this is a big problem.
ozean
Knows everything, can prove it
Posts: 322
Joined: Thu Oct 20, 2005 12:28 pm
Location: Norway
Contact:

Re: Footnotes will be the end of me

Post by ozean »

nicka wrote:But the problem (as Declan suggests) is that neither of these allows a paragraph style to be imposed. So there's no quick way of imposing paragraph styles on text generated in some other application. And of course Mellel doesn't bring in paragraph styles that are already there when it opens an rtf file. So altogether this is a big problem.
I completely agree that this should be addressed – it really is a much bigger hassle than one would expect with Mellel being 100% focused on managing styles etc.
bluestem
Got the styles thing figured out
Posts: 13
Joined: Sat Oct 13, 2007 4:48 pm
Location: Hot Springs, SD
Contact:

Re: Footnotes will be the end of me

Post by bluestem »

My problem is that the footnote reference in the body of the document is NOT superscripted. I must manually change each fn reference in the body to superscript. It's easy to overlook when the footnote comes after a number.

Can anyone tell me how to change note references in the body to superscript?

Thank you

Catherine in Hot Springs, SD
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful,
committed citizens can change the world.
Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
- Margaret Mead -
ahankinson
Knows everything, can prove it
Posts: 83
Joined: Tue Oct 25, 2005 5:37 pm

Re: Footnotes will be the end of me

Post by ahankinson »

You can control the superscript of your footnotes by going to the Insert->Note->Edit Note Attributes... dialog.

Look at the "Reference symbol" section. The "superscript" checkbox will make sure that it's a superscripted number (or whatever symbol you choose to make the reference).

As for the original question: I know it's not a full solution, but if you are copying from other applications have you tried pasting as plain text? (Shift-Option-Command-V) If you're pasting in a footnote, it will likely default to the style for the footnote.
Post Reply