Popup footnotes only shows first paragraph

[Unno]

I hope someone can see what's wrong here.

I have an ebook with a lot of footnotes. Many of the footnotes are several paragraphs long. I've tried a lot of variations to the HTML, but no matter what I do, my Kindle Paperwhite will only display the first paragraph of each footnote in the popup. Currently, it's set up exactly like the example on on the Amazon Guidelines page (https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/to...4DRT75GWWAGBTU).

If I tap "Go to footnote" I can see the whole thing, but that's a very subpar solution. Not only is it inconvenient, but it's not always clear if the footnote is multiple paragraphs.

In my Googling, not only have I failed to find a solution. I've failed to even find anyone else having this problem. This post (https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=331142) mentions issues with formatting of the multiple paragraphs that are displayed in the popup, but there doesn't seem to be any problem seeing all the paragraphs.

Below is the basic format of my HTML. Does anyone see a problem with this? Am I doing something wrong? Is there some trick to this that I'm missing? I would really appreciate any help that you all could give me.

In the main text of the book (book.html), I have links like this:
<p>The text<a id="1" epub:type="noteref" href="#foot1">1</a></p>

Then, in the footnotes file, I have another link, as well as aside tags:
<aside id="foot1" epub:type="footnote">
<p><a epub:type="noteref" href="#1">1</a>First paragraph of footnote</p>
<p>Second paragraph of footnote</p>
</aside>

[jhowell]

I have seen the same problem and I do not know of a workaround for it other than making each footnote a single paragraph.

It does appear that you can sometimes trick the Kindle into showing more than one paragraph by using undocumented, incorrect HTML coding but it doesn’t work consistently.

[Unno]

Thanks for the reply.

Of course, it doesn't fix my problem, but it's good to at least have validation that I'm not alone in dealing with this.

I seems so shortsighted for Amazon to not have such basic functionality on their devices. I guess all we can hope for is that at some point in the distant future, they fix it.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Unno

Thanks for the reply.

Of course, it doesn't fix my problem, but it's good to at least have validation that I'm not alone in dealing with this.

I seems so shortsighted for Amazon to not have such basic functionality on their devices. I guess all we can hope for is that at some point in the distant future, they fix it.

It seems pretty basic functionality to me. They have popups for the first paragraph of the footnote for those who skim footnotes; they have more information, more content, etc. for those that want it, by the simple expedient of clicking through. (shrug).

Hitch

[Notjohn]

It does seem a shame. I sometimes get quite discursive in my Notes & Sources, which causes me to start paragraphing.

But I don't bother with pop-ups, so that's okay. Notes & Sources is really intended to be read by the truly valued reader, in whole or in part, sooner or later, the way I read the endnotes in any book. (Easier done in print than in digital, of course.)

[fduniho]

I've noticed the same problem with pop-up footnotes. They only show the first paragraph, and they don't indicate whether there are more paragraphs. I'm not familiar enough with the CSS of Kindle books to know if there is anything you can do to fix this. If you can, you should make your book so that it doesn't use pop-up footnotes. The old style of going directly to the footnotes section was better, and it's the main reason I still read heavily footnoted books on my Kindle Touch.

[locrelite]

In case anyone stumbles across this, I've encountered similar problems with my excessively gregarious footnotes, and here are my current workarounds for my Kindle Oasis:

For basic multi-paragraph footnotes, if you use indentation instead of block divisions to indicate paragraphs, you can wrap the entire footnote in one <p> tag and use <br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; wherever you want a paragraph break. This is neither undocumented nor incorrect html and looks fine in the popup and the footnote page.

However, any block level separation will trigger the single paragraph issue. I've tried every torturous-yet-valid combination of css and html I know of; it appears the rendering engine is simply aware of the divide and will cut off multiple paragraphs.

I decided in this case it's better to jump directly to the note, and you can force this behavior by omitting the epub:type="noteref" in the link to the footnote, so your initial link is just

<p>The text<a id="1" href="#foot1">1</a></p>

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by locrelite

In case anyone stumbles across this, I've encountered similar problems with my excessively gregarious footnotes, and here are my current workarounds for my Kindle Oasis:

For basic multi-paragraph footnotes, if you use indentation instead of block divisions to indicate paragraphs, you can wrap the entire footnote in one <p> tag and use <br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; wherever you want a paragraph break. This is neither undocumented nor incorrect html and looks fine in the popup and the footnote page.

However, any block level separation will trigger the single paragraph issue. I've tried every torturous-yet-valid combination of css and html I know of; it appears the rendering engine is simply aware of the divide and will cut off multiple paragraphs.

I decided in this case it's better to jump directly to the note, and you can force this behavior by omitting the epub:type="noteref" in the link to the footnote, so your initial link is just

<p>The text<a id="1" href="#foot1">1</a></p>

I think the <br/> solution is a much better solution. Why do you want to jump to the footnote instead of allowing it in a popup

[locrelite]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I think the <br/> solution is a much better solution. Why do you want to jump to the footnote instead of allowing it in a popup

I prefer that too, but any hint of a multi-line break (or any extra space between paragraphs) will create the original problem and I haven't found a workaround. In that case, it's better to get the user to the full context of the note instead of one that cuts off.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by locrelite

I prefer that too, but any hint of a multi-line break (or any extra space between paragraphs) will create the original problem and I haven't found a workaround. In that case, it's better to get the user to the full context of the note instead of one that cuts off.

Instead of a line break, just put *** where the line space should be.

[locrelite]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Instead of a line break, just put *** where the line space should be.

I'm like, ten billion years old, and get stodgy about exactly how it looks on the page, but yeah, that would do it.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by locrelite

I'm like, ten billion years old, and get stodgy about exactly how it looks on the page, but yeah, that would do it.

Sometimes we have to do what works. And besides, it's only a footnote.

[locrelite]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Sometimes we have to do what works. And besides, it's only a footnote.

This inspired me to go see if they made an ebook of House of Leaves. They have not.

[Notjohn]

What about Nabokov's Pale Fire? I have only the Lancer paperback from 1963. The poem by John Shade occupies pp 23-49 and the Commentary (the footnotes) by Charles Kinbote runs on to p213. The first note, to lines 1-4, has four paragraphs.

I suppose the Kindle edition could simply cheat and set the Commentary as text. If there were no footnotes, there would be no popups, I suppose.

Ah, but I see that the Kindle sample does indeed have links to the Commentary. Alas, even the earliest links aren't included in the sample.