[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by phillipgessert

I'm very sure Tex'll have a much better solution than this one, but I figured I'd come back anyway since I said I would.

Thanks for the steps.

I'll hold off until I see the actual EPUB.

... buttttttt, if I had to do something quickly:

Rough Solution #1: ... If it was me, I'd probably pull the numbers out of the:

#footnote-025-backlink"></a>

but that all depends if the numbers in those IDs match the actual number in the text itself.

If it does, great, it's easier.

If it doesn't, things get a little trickier.

- - - - - -

Side Note: Most likely, the ID numbers InDesign generates are off-by-one or more:

• "#footnote-025" in the HTML = the actual footnote 24

- - - - - -

Rough Solution #2: You could use Doitsu's "Incremental IDs" plugin.

1. Renumber all the IDs to match whatever ## the book displays.

2. Get those numbers into the text itself.

Originally Posted by phillipgessert

That'd change the parent <div> to an <ol>. Note that you'll have to also adjust this in CSS, because InDesign will likely have it in there as div._idFootnotes. If so, you'll have to edit it to ol._idFootnotes, or probably just ._idFootnotes.

I can't recall seeing much thorough testing on <ol> footnotes.

Does anyone know how well this works across devices? (Especially older ones?)

In EPUBs, I always avoided <ol> for lists because of:

• All the auto-numbering issues.
  
  • Starting from non-1 numbers.
    
    • HTML start bugs.
      
  • Different alphabets.
    
    • HTML type issues. (Limited selection.)
      
  • What happens when you get a '*' footnote?
    
• Not being able to handle complicated numbering/formatting schemes.
  
  • Footnotes such as: [1], (a), b), A1, 1.1
    
    • There is CSS3 list-style + mixes of CSS3 ::before + ::after + content.
      
    • Also CSS3 Counter Styles.

A lot of that stuff may work on the web, where you have many more updated browsers... but in the land of ebooks, that kind of complicated code would be... extremely unreliable.

This why people like me + Hitch always recommend inserting the numbers into the text itself. It's the only reliable way to get it working 100% across all devices/formats.

For more info, see lots of the discussion in:

• 2018: "Google Docs to EPUB?"

where I picked apart Google Docs's <ol> footnote abominations.

Side Note #2: If you want even more fun with complicated footnotes/endnotes, see the discussion where I broke down a Winston Churchill ebook:

• 2021: "superscript code" (Posts #21+)

The beast had ~5000 endnotes and ~300 footnotes.

Endnotes were displayed as "1" and footnotes were displayed as "fn1".

It's definitely one of those complicated examples where Print book numbering ≠ Ebook.

Side Note #2.1: I also wonder how <ol> would handle that when it starts reaching 5000!!! lol.

Originally Posted by phillipgessert

note that I did not bother setting any CSS up here. Again, I wouldn't do it this way unless you can't find a better solution, and I'm sure there is one.

Yep, probably just some fiddly setting in InDesign.

That's where I would look first.

One of those checkboxes we mentioned may fix this numbering oddity.

Side Note: Personally, for my footnotes, I just throw away all the InDesign crap and redo everything to human-readable, clean stuff. :P