OTF superscripts for notes

[transalpin]

I want the reference numbers for my footnotes to appear in superscript. Unfortunately, the superscript option in the “Edit notes” sheet doesn’t provide OpenType superscripts, only the fake ones!

So I created a new character style called “Superscript” for the reference symbol. It looks just like the “Regular” character style, but with OTF superscripts.

This works – unless I insert a note in a title or blockquote or any other paragraph that has it’s own character style. The reference number will look like “Regular” and not like the surrounding font.

Why doesn’t Mellel let you choose a style variation rather than a character style? In my opinion, the character style of a reference number should always be the surrounding one.
This way I could create a style variation called “Superscript” that looks different for every character style.

[transalpin]

Any word on this?

[TLS]

Why doesn’t Mellel let you choose a style variation rather than a character style? In my opinion, the character style of a reference number should always be the surrounding one.

Unless I am missing a point somewhere, I fail to see why you would want to do that for note references. I have done as you did, created an OTF note reference style. This imposes the kind of consistancy I want. I want all note references to be set in 12 point Garamond Pro Regular with OTF superscripts. I don't want them to use any surrounding font or stype at all. Just because a subheading might be set in 14 point Arial Bold doesn't mean the note reference should be. It is typographically poor.

This is one gripe I have with Framemaker. I can't have a paragraph-level style formatted in a non-Latin font (say Greek or Hebrew) because the note references will also be in that font, and if the font does not contain Arabic numerals, it is a major problem. The only work around there is to have a Latin paragraph style (for the note refrences) but a Greek, Hebrew, etc. character style. I certainly don't want to have to do that in Mellel. I will add that Framemaker does not use Unicode, so it is necessary to use a different ASCII-font for each script.

[transalpin]

I want all note references to be set in 12 point Garamond Pro Regular with OTF superscripts. I don't want them to use any surrounding font or stype at all.

The style variation would allow you to define a font of your choice for reference numbers within any character style.
I use one character style for the whole paragraph, whereas italics for emphasis, small caps for authors, and superscripts for reference numbers should be variations of this style.

Just because a subheading might be set in 14 point Arial Bold doesn't mean the note reference should be. It is typographically poor.

Is that true?
I am not a typographer, but to me a 12 point Garamond Pro superscript following a 14 point sans-serif title or 10 point quotation paragraph just looks wrong.
I need an option to style my reference symbols depending on the paragraph in which they appear.

[matthias]

I would like to support transalpin's request.

A better implementation of OTF superscript for reference numbers could be achieved with the use of style variations: Besides the option to assign a character style for note references in the footnotes preference window there could be another option allowing to assign a style variation, too. You could then create a variation called "superscript" for all the character styles used and the reference number would perfectly match the character style used.

Matthias