Footnote formatting stupidity

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ChoccieMuffin
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Posts: 2630
Joined: Wed Apr 14, 2010 8:01 am
Location: Surrey, UK

Footnote formatting stupidity

Post by ChoccieMuffin »

Afternoon all.

I have a stupid thing that is happening in my PDFs and I can't work out how to fix it.

I have a table, in which I have several footnotes, created from a Word import in case that matters. (EDIT: it does!)

When looking in Flare, the footnotes display as I would expect them to:

1 Footnote text
2 Text of second footnote that extends for
more than one line
3 Another footnote

But in my PDF, the footnote number appears on a separate number:

1
Footnote text
2
Text of second footnote that extends for more than
one line
3
Another footnote

EDIT:
After looking a bit closer and experimenting with manually inserting a footnote (rather than the ones causing the problems which were generated from a Word import), it seems that the Word import inserts <p> </p> wrappers around the footnote text like this:

Code: Select all

                   <td>
                        <p><span class="UI">NS</span>
                            <MadCap:footnote class="footnote">
                                <p> This is the footnote text that was included in the original Word doc.</p>
                            </MadCap:footnote><span class="UI">:</span>
                        </p>
                    </td>

Code: Select all

                    <td><span class="UI">DET Calculations:</span>
                        <MadCap:footnote class="footnote">This is what you get when you insert a footnote directly. </MadCap:footnote>
                    </td>

So what can I add to my CSS to stop this stupid line break, or should I do something else in my source Word document, and if so, what?

My CSS for all footnotes items looks like this:

Code: Select all

	MadCap|footnotesBlock
	{
		
	}

	MadCap|footnoteBlock
	{
		margin-left: 1cm;
	}
	MadCap|footnote
	{
		mc-footnote-format: '{n}';
		mc-footnote-comment-format: '{n}   ';
		mc-footnote-position: topic;
	}
What's going on, and what do I need to change? It was ok in this same document a couple of months ago and I haven't changed anything (that I remember, and I've checked back in SVN).


Using Flare 2019.
Started as a newbie with Flare 6.1, now using Flare 2023.
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Psider
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Posts: 811
Joined: Wed Jul 06, 2011 1:32 am

Re: Footnote formatting stupidity

Post by Psider »

Maybe a Word update has caused the issue? I'd set up a test project and import a few docs to see if any of the footnotes are imported correctly, and if any are, see if you can spot any difference in the Word source.
ChoccieMuffin
Senior Propellus Maximus
Posts: 2630
Joined: Wed Apr 14, 2010 8:01 am
Location: Surrey, UK

Re: Footnote formatting stupidity

Post by ChoccieMuffin »

Hmm, possibly a Word update.

But in the meantime, is there anything anyone can suggest for how I get my footnote numbers and my footnotes to NOT appear on separate lines? Got a release coming up soon and I'm being nagged...

This is what it looks like in the XML Editor, and the Text Editor, and how the PDF displays it. It's those pesky <p> wrappers! Is there anything I could put in my stylesheet in a complex selector for "Madcap¦footnote.footnote p" that would remove that linefeed behaviour?
Flare_GUI.png
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Psider
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Posts: 811
Joined: Wed Jul 06, 2011 1:32 am

Re: Footnote formatting stupidity

Post by Psider »

Can you generate it as a web output just to see what the code looks like? I don't actually have Flare to test with but I did successfully figure out a few PDF tricks years ago by inspecting the web output.

Depending on what that looks like, I'd then attempt something like the following (although the fancy selectors often don't work in PDF):

(should set the first p tag inside the footnote to display inline, rather than block - I'm attempting to target the inner div not the outer footnotesBlock div, assuming that structure flows to the output)
div.footnote p::first-child {
display: inline;
}

It's possible you could target the source code for PDF similar to:
(Again, attempting to target the inner div, not the outer block)
MadCap:footnote p::first-child {
display: inline;
}


Hoping that makes some sense.
ChoccieMuffin
Senior Propellus Maximus
Posts: 2630
Joined: Wed Apr 14, 2010 8:01 am
Location: Surrey, UK

Re: Footnote formatting stupidity

Post by ChoccieMuffin »

My "hack" involved editing my post-import search-and-replace script to remove the <p> tags (yet another step in my "tidy up the HTML after a Word import" FAR script!)

I just wish Word and Flare played together nicely. Hopefully the 2019r2 release has addressed some of the pain - I've had two of my reports fixed in it, so I need to work through the release notes thoroughly to see what else has been done. Meantime I've reported it as a bug, so let's see what Tech Support says.
Started as a newbie with Flare 6.1, now using Flare 2023.
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ChoccieMuffin
Senior Propellus Maximus
Posts: 2630
Joined: Wed Apr 14, 2010 8:01 am
Location: Surrey, UK

Re: Footnote formatting stupidity

Post by ChoccieMuffin »

Resurrecting an old thread of mine, as there is a linked problem.

I can't get the line above the footnote block to display in my PDF output (see the pictures in an earlier post) whatever I do with the "border" setting in Madcap|footnotesblock bit.

Here's what I've currently got in my stylesheet for all three footnote things:

Code: Select all

	MadCap|footnotesBlock
	{
		border-top-style: solid;
		border-top-length: 66%;
		border-top-align: left;
		border-top-width: 1px;
		display: block;
		margin-top: 1pt;
		padding-top: 1pt;
	}

	MadCap|footnoteBlock
	{
		margin-left: 1cm;
	}

	MadCap|footnote
	{
		font-size: 9pt;
		margin-left: 1.5cm;
		text-indent: -1.5cm;
		mc-footnote-format: '{n} ';
		mc-footnote-comment-format: '{n}   ';
		mc-footnote-position: topic;
	}

Any suggestions very gratefully received. Thanks!

If it matters, this is in Flare 2019 r1, not r2.
Started as a newbie with Flare 6.1, now using Flare 2023.
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ChoccieMuffin
Senior Propellus Maximus
Posts: 2630
Joined: Wed Apr 14, 2010 8:01 am
Location: Surrey, UK

Re: Footnote formatting stupidity

Post by ChoccieMuffin »

After a lot of digging, it seems that mc-footnote-position: topic; is the culprit.

EDIT: Bug reported and confirmed: bug number 158493

I think.

This is what I eventually went for, having removed and reinserted and messed about with just about every single setting, and I just have to suck it up that footnotes have to appear at the end of a page. I feel a bug report coming on...

The end of a really messy, rubbishy week, but I finally feel like I've actually achieved something.

Code: Select all

MadCap|footnotesBlock
{
	padding-left: 1cm;
	border-top: solid 1px;
	border-top-color: var(--_Border);
}

MadCap|footnoteBlock
{
	margin-left: 1cm; 
	text-indent: -0.5cm;
	
}

MadCap|footnote
{
	font-size: 8pt;
	mc-footnote-format: '{n}';
	mc-footnote-comment-format: '{n}     ';
}
Started as a newbie with Flare 6.1, now using Flare 2023.
Report bugs at http://www.madcapsoftware.com/bugs/submit.aspx.
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