Need some help with footnotes

[lothlann]

I have a Sony PRS-700 that I have had for a while now. I use Calibre for managing my ebooks but have decided to finally resolve my issue with footnotes.

I read a lot of Pratchett, who uses footnotes a lot, and the footnotes end up all being placed at the end of book.

E.g.

Paragraph:
"ASDNLKJNRJNGFJGN [1]"

End of document:
"[1] lskafjfkalsjfkjasf [BACK]"

However, the [1] and [BACK] are not links in many of my books and therefore will not move me to the footnote and back again.

Is there anyway to make either these links to work or, ideally, place the footnotes at the bottom of the relevant page, similar to the actual print versions?

Many thanks,

[elizilla]

Are you using LRF or ePUB?

(I don't actually have an answer for this for either format, but I would expect the answers to be different.)

[entropy]

I have been wondering the best way to navigate footnotes, too. My solution so far has been to remember the page number, touch the footnote link, then use the go to page number feature and return to where I was. This was in an epub book. But it's clumsy and awkward. Surely there is a better way??

[lothlann]

I am using epubs. Its just really annoying, there must be a solution.

[perilous]

When I was reading Terry Pratchett on an original Kobo I edited the epubs to put the footnotes in line with the text (in a slightly smaller font size to make the distinction obvious). I used Sigil to do the editing. It was a manual process but it didn't take very long to do and it made it much easier to read the book.

Alternatively, if your Sony PRS-700 can follow hyperlinks then it would be pretty simple to add working hyperlinks by editing the epub (again, I would use Sigil).

Putting footnotes at the bottom of the page isn't really possible because the "page" varies depending on font size etc.

[lothlann]

Thank you, I will give it a go. Wish me luck. This may take a long time with all my Discworld books.

[lothlann]

Just started to try with Sigil. This may be a stupid question but how do I make the font smaller? I have put the footnote inline and now wish to make it smaller.

Thanks.

[Pablo]

When you have read your footnote, you can go back to your previous page by pressing the OPTIONS button and then tapping on the previous page button on the screen. Have a look at the manual.

[perilous]

Originally Posted by lothlann

Just started to try with Sigil. This may be a stupid question but how do I make the font smaller? I have put the footnote inline and now wish to make it smaller.

The font size is controlled by stylesheet.css. You need to view the document in either "split view" or "code view" so that you can edit the XHTML. Then you can apply a style to the footnote text and define the style in stylesheet.css to have the desired font size.

For example, one of my footnotes from "I Shall Wear Midnight" is defined as:

<p class="calibre17"><span class="calibre2"><a class="calibre3" id="filepos72679"></a> <a class="calibre16" href="#filepos28231">1</a> This was done blindfolded.</span></p>

In the stylesheet.css file I have the following style:

.calibre2 {
font-size: 0.83333em
}

Does this help? I'm not sure I've answered very clearly...

[entropy]

Originally Posted by Pablo

When you have read your footnote, you can go back to your previous page by pressing the OPTIONS button and then tapping on the previous page button on the screen. Have a look at the manual.

Oh right, the manual... thanks!

[Syniurge]

Originally Posted by lothlann

I have a Sony PRS-700 that I have had for a while now. I use Calibre for managing my ebooks but have decided to finally resolve my issue with footnotes.

I read a lot of Pratchett, who uses footnotes a lot, and the footnotes end up all being placed at the end of book.

E.g.

Paragraph:
"ASDNLKJNRJNGFJGN [1]"

End of document:
"[1] lskafjfkalsjfkjasf [BACK]"

However, the [1] and [BACK] are not links in many of my books and therefore will not move me to the footnote and back again.

Do the links work in Calibre's viewer?
In Sigil you should check if the links (the <a> tags) point to the right filenames (e.g if you see <a class="calibre9" href="../Text/dummy_split_007.html#filepos11992">Preface</a> check if Text/dummy_split_007.html exists)

Originally Posted by lothlann

Is there anyway to make either these links to work or, ideally, place the footnotes at the bottom of the relevant page, similar to the actual print versions?

EPUB nor any format as far as I know feature real footnotes like you describe.

However it's possible to insert the footnotes automatically with a script, rather than doing it manually in Sigil.