How do I make either end notes of footnotes in epub?

[ghostyjack]

I'm going to be making several books that if it was in pbook form would need a footnote on several of the pages.

I've been told that footnotes are not really possible in epub, so would need to use endnotes. Is this true? If not, how do I add footnotes.

If it is true and I need to add endnotes, then how do I do this? Also, how do I make it go back to the originating page?

[pdurrant]

My ePub of Kidnapped & Catriona has lots of footnotes/endnotes.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=58419

You just need a hyperlink on the note to take you back to the original text.
Footnotes (appearing at the bottom of a page) aren't really possible. Endnotes are pretty much as good.

Originally Posted by ghostyjack

I'm going to be making several books that if it was in pbook form would need a footnote on several of the pages.

I've been told that footnotes are not really possible in epub, so would need to use endnotes. Is this true? If not, how do I add footnotes.

If it is true and I need to add endnotes, then how do I do this? Also, how do I make it go back to the originating page?

[DaleDe]

While it is certainly possible to create endnotes as internal html links. I was wondering if the ePUB committee has or will address the need for an ePUB footnote. They talk about allowing the application to code it but they don't provide any unique way for an application to know it is a footnote and not some other kind of link. I would think a new tag would be appropriate such as the wiki uses. <ref>this is a footnote</ref> would automatically be enough to code in a footnote and then the reading application would use that data to generate a proper footnote, or even an endnote depending on what the application could do.

Dale

[rogue_ronin]

There's discussion elsewhere (in the Sigil forum, I believe) about using the footer tag to code footnotes. It's pretty theoretical, though, because no current device actually displays the footers.

One of the hopes is that it might popup a window containing the note. Anything is possible, as what the tag displays is defined by the device firmware. It could be a running footer, or whatever.

You can mimic a popup, sort of, without footer code. In my books, I code the superscripted indicator as a link, without actually superscripting (because superscripting usually makes ugly line-spacing, and it's pretty small to click on):

... As a rule, however, non-exploding projectiles are used at night." <a class="EndNoteLink" id="Link_To_Endnote_1" href="#Endnote_1">[1]</a></p>

Which links to a <li> element named "Endnote_1", which is enclosed in a section at the end of the book called "Endnotes", defined by a <div>. (Don't mistake the <h2> header as defining a section. And I use the title attribute to store the endnote count.)

	<div class="Spine" id="Endnotes" title="1">
		<h2>ENDNOTES</h2>
		<ul>
			<li id="Endnote_1">
				 <strong>[1]</strong> I have used the word radium in describing this powder because in the light of recent discoveries on Earth I believe it to be a mixture of which radium is the base. In Captain Carter's manuscript it is mentioned always by the name used in the written language of Helium and is spelled in hieroglyphics which it would be difficult and useless to reproduce.
				<a class="EndNoteBackLink" href="#Link_To_Endnote_1">
					<img class="Return" alt="Return to Link Button" src="images/return.png" />
				</a>
			</li>
		</ul>
	</div>

In my CSS, I've defined the following for images in the "Endnote" <div>, inside an unordered list, within a <li> element, enclosed by an anchor with the class "EndNoteBackLink":

div#Endnotes ul li a.EndNoteBackLink img {
margin-top:.25em;
margin-bottom:.25em;
display:block;
page-break-after:always;
}

Which, if you're unfamiliar with CSS, puts a page-break after the link back to the original endnote link. (I should probably just select images with the class "Return", now that I re-read it. Still, it works.)

The effect is that when you click the original link, you jump to a page that contains only the note you're trying to read. You click on the little "return" image to return to your original spot.

(The image actually says "return", just as an image -- this allows me to theme it, along with all the other images I use.)

If you're paging through the book, you will eventually come to the Endnotes section, and you can page down through the notes sequentially. Whenever you're at an endnote, you can page down (or up) as well -- you're not pinned in another document, as you might be if each endnote were its own document.

Note that my structural tagging is pretty strict: it may not suit you. The advantage is that I can automate it, and that it is readable. With everything fairly well classed, I can control layout pretty granularly. Still, to each his own: the concept should help you do what you want.

You can find the book I took this code from here. It's in XHTML, which is what ePub is based on -- conversion should be dead simple.

m a r

[DaleDe]

Thanks for posting something that works. And it is an interesting use for CSS. I still believe there should be an official version from the idpf committee to address this problem.

Footers are not the answer btw. This is the wrong use and they are only one line per page.

[rogue_ronin]

XHTML microformats are indeed needed. You'd probably have to come up with several variants: textbook, novel, etc.

It's important that they not be limited by current technology, too. Most of the readers don't support the spec properly, and it'd be a shame if there were 'workarounds' -- such as the 300k flow-size limit.

m a r

[Bossman]

Just as a note the Ipdf specification on
Open Publication Structure (OPS) 2.0.1 v1.0
has the css tag
oeb-page-foot

The content of an element assigned display: oeb-page-head should be presented only as a header, and the content of an element assigned display: oeb-page-foot should be presented only as a footer. Neither should be simply presented as if it were inline or block. Reading Systems, however, are free to present headers and footers either in special areas as usual for paper publications, or to make them available in another way. For example, a device with a small screen might instead pop them up on demand. For purposes of page layout, these display values are similar to block boxes with an absolute position (i.e. a position value of fixed or absolute). That is, they are removed from the normal flow and a new block box is created with its own flow. Margins, padding, and other block characteristics are determined as if the element had position: fixed set.

which would be what you want. But ADE does not implement this feature.

[AlexBell]

Originally Posted by ghostyjack

I'm going to be making several books that if it was in pbook form would need a footnote on several of the pages.

I've been told that footnotes are not really possible in epub, so would need to use endnotes. Is this true? If not, how do I add footnotes.

If it is true and I need to add endnotes, then how do I do this? Also, how do I make it go back to the originating page?

For what it is worth here is how I do it:

<span id="C2F01"></span><a href="Footnotes.html#C2N01">[1]</a>

<p id="C1N01"><a href="Chapter01.html#C1F01">[1]</a> whatever the footnote is</p>

C2F01 is the first footnote in chapter 2, and C2N01 is the first entry in Footnotes.html

The user sees [1] in Chapter 1 and clicks on it. This takes him or her to [1] in the footnotes - the second line above. To return to the text the user clicks on this link, and it takes him or her back to the text.

The link in the text is put in a span because some footnote references occur in the middle of a paragraph. The link in the footnotes is put in a paragraph because each footnote is on a new line.

I prefer a separate footnote file at the end of the ebook. It is possible to put the footnotes at the end of the chapter just by putting them in a separate div. But this means that the user has to page through the already read footnotes to get to the next chapter. That's a minor task with a print book, but I think a bit of a nuisance with an ebook.

Because of what little experience I have in web design I am a little obsessional about making sure that the ebooks I prepare validate according to the W3C standards, and that the ebook validates according to ePubcheck. So I do not use anything that is not valid XHTML 1.1.

I hope this helps. Regards, Alex

[eping]

Footnote needs to be supported by EPUB and reading devices.
Endnote works well.
If your manuscripts are written in MS Word, all footnotes can be converted
into endnotes automatically by saving as web pages.

[JSWolf]

But don't forget a link to go back to where you were as most ADE implementations do not have a button to go back to where you were (Sony does).

[eping]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

But don't forget a link to go back to where you were as most ADE implementations do not have a button to go back to where you were (Sony does).

Would we have to add back link manually?
If so I would rather give up back link, after all there's no back link in real paper books.

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

But don't forget a link to go back to where you were as most ADE implementations do not have a button to go back to where you were (Sony does).

The Cybooks do too (they have a hardware "back" button).

Originally Posted by eping

Would we have to add back link manually?
If so I would rather give up back link, after all there's no back link in real paper books.

Well, a "back" link is always useful. Have you never wished to search where a given foot/endnote is referred to in the text? I have, very often, and it is a pain to look for the reference. In my Ph.D. disertation (in paper) I included back links in the bibliography section, so every entry had a line stating the page(s) where it had been referred to.

[GeoffC]

with the speed ereaders link to notes, does it really matter that, what in paper versions were footnotes (page-related), are re-designated end-notes ?

would it not be fair to say that footnotes are increasingly an 'old-fashioned' concept....

[EricDP]

Originally Posted by eping

...after all there's no back link in real paper books.

Sure there is. It's called your finger, or a bookmark. Or do you close the book when you go to an endnote, and then have to find your page again by flipping through from the start?

[AlexBell]

Originally Posted by GeoffC

with the speed ereaders link to notes, does it really matter that, what in paper versions were footnotes (page-related), are re-designated end-notes ?

would it not be fair to say that footnotes are increasingly an 'old-fashioned' concept....

I think we're all agreed that footnotes at the bottom of the page and not possible in ebooks because 'pages' are of different sizes depending on screen and font size.

That leaves endnotes at the end of chapters, or endnotes together at the end of the ebook. For what it is worth my practice is to put the endnotes at the end of chapters if there are only one or two of them for the chapter, or put them at the end of the ebook if there are many of them for each chapter.

The problem with putting a lot of footnotes at the end of the chapter is that one has to page through material one has already read when one comes through the end of the chapter. And I always put a link back to the place in the text where the footnote occurs. It may not be necessary, but just seems neater, more symmetrical.

Regards, Alex