Pickups and page bottom footnotes

Hi - It's been a while since I posted so hopefully this is the right place.

I am attempting to use pickups with page bottom footnotes in a black box composition workflow and have a recollection years back that those 2 elements do not 'play together' nicely. I recall there to be issues with overset and loss of footnotes all together; however I am hopeful these issues are resolved and that is no longer true. Does anyone recall the same limit and has that limit changed or been eliminated.

Thanks Chris

  • Chris,

    You are right.

    There quite a few problem when combining pickups and footnotes.

    These are the problems I have seen:

    • When both footnote and pickup are block based and the system wants to put them in the bottom of the block, they come out footnotes first followed by the pickup. And whether you like it or not, that order can not be changed.
    • In other cases where the pickup was page and the footnote was block, I have seen the system output the pickups, leaves the page short and push the text with the footnote onto the next page (although there is plenty of room on the page).

    So yes it is correct to say that combining pickups with footnotes and trying to get both at the bottom of the page is a combination that does not play very well.

    As far as I know little progress have been made in that particular field.

    So high time for all the people who are having the same problem to open up a ticket and report the problems you are seeing.

    (and in some cases ask for a product enhancement)

  • Thanks Bart - those are the examples I was thinking of. Our demand for having this type of setup is minor right now but if the 'decision makers' decide they want this feature then I will be submitting the request for enhancement.

    We are attempting to use call out boxes [floating] with footnotes and if you have any suggestions that could make that work, again in a black box system, I would be grateful to hear them. - Much appreciated Chris
  • Chris,

    What do you mean by 'call out boxes'?

    Pickups (but possibly in another stream than your regular pickups)?

    Can you also give some specifics on the layout you are using:

    • single, double column or mixed?
    • page pickups or block pickups or mixed?
    • page footnotes or block footnotes?

    Maybe you can upload a pdf (a picture is worth a thousand words?)

  • Yes I agree on the picture. I have asked for an example but am still waiting. Hopefully will get one soon. In the meantime I can answer your questions.

    This will be put in a product that has single main text blocks with 2 column page bottom footnotes. As you can imagine being law publishers the footnotes are quite extensive.

    We were attempting to use pickups for them because they are supposed to float in relation to the location of the call-out in text.

    Basically, it will be a small box with a list styled text that will place against the outside margin of a page with text surrounding it. As soon as I have a decent example I will attach it.

    Thanks - Chris

    I found an example but it doesn't include the footnote. This shows the example of the call-out and how the text is to flow around it. It can be placed at any point against the outside margin of the text block within a page. If I can find one with footnotes I will send it through. Always - thanks for helping!

  • Hi Chris (and Bart too),

    Yes, in regards to Bart's comments there are only so many choices and options in XPP as far as how pickups and footnotes "play together" when you have both on a page (and even how pickups and footnotes themselves work when you only have one of them at play). We've tried to tackle the most common scenarios needed by the majority of our customers, but certainly have not (yet) attempted to handle all possible ways that might be desired for how pickups and footnotes might work.

    However in regards to your comments about "issues with overset and loss of footnotes all together", I don't know how many years ago you are talking about but certainly over the past years we have fixed a number of both of these kinds of problems with footnotes (and some problems with pickups as well).

    Jonathan Dagresta
    RWS Group/
    XPP Development