Hi Shelly,
The continuous numbering of the original Mellel file is changed to restart with page
I think the culprit are the settings in the program you are using to open the RTF with. Word processors usually have an import template, which may or may not be the same as the default template you use when you create a new document with that program. If this template is set to restart footnotes every new page, then it overrides your Mellel file with its
continuous numbering. So, make sure footnotes in the import program are set to
continuous numbering before the document is imported.
the footnote symbol attributes are changed […] and the note symbol font and size in the Mellel file are changed to Helvetica Neue 11 […]
Font and size of the Note symbol are determined by the Note symbol style in the target program; it must, as far as I understand, match the Note symbol style in Mellel.
In my test, both Nisus Writer Pro and the latest version of MS Word showed
continuous numbering after import, and both the Reference symbol and the Note symbol were correctly rendered… , but only as long as they were superscripted or didn't have brackets, a dot or hyphen, i.e. (#), [#], #. and #-
Since superscripts are retained, the question at this stage is: how can we then make the brackets or the dot a part of the style in the target program? It took me only 2 seconds to make the Note symbol style in Nisus match Mellel's style. The result looked perfect. In MS Word I did not find any way to make brackets or a dot a part of the style.
When I imported the RTF file with the enhanced Note symbol style from Nisus into Word, all brackets were preserved.
So, to make a long story short: if I were occasionally exporting Note symbols with brackets from Mellel to Word, I would use Nisus as a go-between; and if I were to do this on a regular basis, I would create a new Note symbol style in Nisus, matching your favorite Mellel style, and add it to the default layout, the so called "Nisus New File." After having done that, I guess there shouldn't be any need for modifying the style after import.
As I already said, MS Word doesn't allow us to do this, so, as far as I can see, you have four options: [1] use Nisus as a go-between, [2] insert the brackets per Find & Replace in Word, [3] not use brackets or a dot at all, …or [4] use only superscripts.