Selecting all footnotes (a variant)

[Declan]

Suppose I import an RTF file with footnotes, and then want to change those footnotes to the footnote paragraph style I have set up.
It appears that in that case I have to select the footnotes one by one and then specify the paragraph style on each occasion.
Is this a good thing?

[I called this post a "variant" because I have posted before on similar matters of selecting things and imposing styles. I love Mellel, but I would love it more if it were easier to select things and then impose styles on the selections. I would love it even more if it allowed selection of headings in the imported document according to font size and bold (or whatever) formatting, and then choose an auto title for all that share those characteristic, but I suspect that that would be too much. Nisus makes this sort of thing very easy, but I'd rather work in Mellel.]


Declan

[DylanMuir]

Is it possible to use the find/replace styles functionality in this case? That would only work if the footnotes had consistent unique formatting, of course...

DRM

[Declan]

Well, that's just the problem. They would have unique formatting, but I can never decipher the way Mellel displays the character and paragraph formatting. It's true, all footnotes would be 10 pt Times New Roman, but that is found in the Character pane. If I then switch to the Paragraph pane, I find "Par. Style (left to right)+5", Par. Style (left to right)+5, Par. Style (left to right)+5, Par. Style (left to right)+6, Par. Style (left to right)+6.
If I pick one of those to see which of them is associated with 10 pt Times New Roman, I get information about the paragraph formatting, margins, spacing and the rest. Or – in the overrides pane - an impenetrable list including enlightening information as follows:

"Alignment: Centre, Line spacing: 1.5 lines, Space above: 0.529 cm
Space below: 0.529 cm, Tabs: Regular 28.0, Regular 56.0, Regular 84.0, Regular 112.0, Regular 140.0, Regular 168.0, Regular 196.0, Regular 224.0, Regular 252.0, Regular 280.0, Regular 308.0, Regular 336.0, Regular 360.0, Regular 396.0, Regular 432.0"

I'd like to think that one could identify a marker within all this information that would quickly lead me to identify which of the various Par. Style (left to right)+5 versions is the one I need.

I hope I've illustrated the issue successfully. Can anyone think of a workaround for this?
Thanks,

Declan

[ozean]

If possible, I usually change the styling in the original RTF, so that for example footnotes have a tab at 1.0 – some kind of feature that I can then easily detect in the replace styles window and that is unique to the paragraph that I want to change.

[Declan]

Thanks. Yes, that would be helpful.
Except I don't think that Scrivener allows one to change the margins on the output footnotes.
One can change the font, but that won't show up in Mellel in the paragraph pane.
Perhaps we are getting closer to a solution, though.
Thanks again,

Declan

[nicka]

What would help massively here would be a) making the Replace Styles dialogue non-modal, or at least stopping it from obscuring the document; and b) having it so that selecting a style in the dialogue also highlighted the instances of that style on the page.

[kjmatthews]

After importing/opening the RTF with footnotes in Mellel, select the menu option Insert > Notes > Edit Note Attributes. Change the Note Style from "RTF Footnotes+" to your preferred footnote style and click OK. The style change should be immediate and applied to all footnotes.

[suavito]

Nothing much to add to what kjmatthews wrote.

Just one thing: If you export, say, from Scrivener, don't set the footnote and endnote numbers to superscripted in the compiling to export settings. You can't get rid of them in an imported rtf file in Mellel—whatever superscript-less format you might apply. Superscripted footnote numbers/symbols are pretty common, but usually not endnote numbers in square brackets. If the rtf file contains non-superscripted footnote and endnote numbers you are free to choose their style in Mellel.

The fact that this thread was opened at all is a clear indicator that the footnote style replacement for imported files is not placed anywhere where one might expect it to find it. And a default setting like "I want MyFootnoteFormat for imported rtf texts" would come very handy. Importing at general is still, after all these years, not good, but don't get me started on this. Or maybe do get me started but not in this thread …

[kjmatthews]

The fact that this thread was opened at all is a clear indicator that the footnote style replacement for imported files is not placed anywhere where one might expect to find [it].

I quite agree with suavito on this count.

[Declan]

Thanks again for help. I actually know about the edit footnote thing in the edit menu. Yes, it is a bit hard to find, but I've been using it for a while. The thing is that I'm working on a long document, and drafting each part in scrivener, and then pasting the exported rtf into Mellel, appending it to what is already there. For some reason, in Mellel the footnotes in the imported section do not adopt the note style adopted. I've tried, for example, changing the style to endnote (to see if that would clear out whatever was blocking the application of my footnote style), but it didn't do it.
Perhaps I should look into the superscript thing mentioned. Perhaps that is what is confusing Mellel.
In the meantime, I'll do it manually, footnote by footnote.
Focus, Declan, focus!

[kjmatthews]

In the meantime, I'll do it manually, footnote by footnote.

Well, there's no need for that, either. Couldn't you just create an empty new document with the same styles, paste each "new" portion into that document, make the style changes you need to, and then copy and paste the edited text into the official document?

[Declan]

Lateral thinking.
I like it!

Declan