Endnotes to Footnotes and Vice Versa

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laup
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Endnotes to Footnotes and Vice Versa

Post by laup »

Is there an easy way to change all endnotes to footnotes, or vice versa, as can occur if the journal for a manuscript turns out to want the opposite convention of the original manuscript? It is easy enough to redefine the existing footnote or endnote style so that it looks like the other, but--in my feeble attempts--the resulting objects still remembered themselves as being what they were originally.

I ended up reinserting all the endnotes as new footnotes. I could do that with 15, but it was tedious and would have been horribly so for a long document.

In Word, the change is easy, so long as you know to use the trick of (1) using Insert footnote, (2) clicking the Convert button, and (3) mandating the change.

If there is nothing comparably easy in Mellel, creating one would be a very nice feature.
Paul
joseph_anton
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Re: Endnotes to Footnotes and Vice Versa

Post by joseph_anton »

I agree that this would be a very useful feature. I tried to do this recently in Mellel and wasn't able to find a way to do it.

Nisus Writer Pro has a Macro that can handle this called "Convert Notes to Text," but obviously that's only useful if you're ready to move your work out of Mellel altogether. I've been using this recently as a way of getting my work into a .docx document that grammar checkers can work with.

Here's a link to that Macro if you happen to have NWP: https://nisus.com/pro/macros/browse.php ... otestoText
Icelander
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Re: Endnotes to Footnotes and Vice Versa

Post by Icelander »

laup wrote: Wed Sep 12, 2018 11:45 pm Is there an easy way to change all endnotes to footnotes, or vice versa
This can be done quite easily in Mellel.

1. Choose "Note" –> "Edit Note attributes" from the Insert menu
2. Select the Note Stream, which in this case is probably 'Endnote', given that you entered endnotes into your document from the Insert menu.
3. Now select a Note Style from the Note Style pop-up menu that reflects how you want the notes to look like. I have created additional Notes Styles, so I'm having 5 different styles in that menu now: Footnote, Footnote small [for small footnotes], Endnote, Endnote small, Author Notes [here the note symbol is asterisk] and finally Footnote with ) [that is, a footnote with a bracket note symbol]
4. Now you should have a Note Stream called "Endnote" with a Note Style called "Footnote" (or whatever name you have given your favorite footnote style.)


NB:
A Note Stream can take whatever Note Style you want, provided you have created additional Note Styles. Thus a Note Stream called "Footnote" can have a Note Style of an *endnote* ! You are also free to rename your Note Streams, if you so desire.

I hope this description was not too complicated. Once you've wrapped your head around how notes work in Mellel, it is quite enjoyable and easy to work with them.
Last edited by Icelander on Thu Sep 13, 2018 2:28 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Icelander
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Re: Endnotes to Footnotes and Vice Versa

Post by Icelander »

joseph_anton wrote: Thu Sep 13, 2018 9:08 am Nisus Writer Pro has a Macro that can handle this called "Convert Notes to Text,"
This macro is not intended for this kind of job. Nisus Writer Pro has a built-in feature to change all endnotes to footnotes, and vice versa. This is how it's done:

1. Place the insertion point in an endnote
2. Press Command + a
3. Press Command + a again. This will select ALL endnotes in the document (something Mellel can't do!)
4. Now click on the green star in the right bottom bar and choose 'Footnotes'. This will change all endnotes to footnotes in one fell swoop.

To change footnotes back to endnotes, place the insertion point in a footnote (it doesn't matter in which one), repeat 2 to 4 and choose 'Endnote' from the green star menu.
joseph_anton
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Re: Endnotes to Footnotes and Vice Versa

Post by joseph_anton »

Icelander wrote: Thu Sep 13, 2018 1:33 pm This macro is not intended for this kind of job. Nisus Writer Pro has a built-in feature to change all endnotes to footnotes, and vice versa.
This is very valuable information, thanks for posting!
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