Compiling Footnotes, with links in them, splits the notes

Scrivener Version: 3.1.5.1 (2073405) 64-bit - 06 Jul 2023 on Windows 11 Pro 23H2.
Using the Default format, tried compiling to Microsoft Word .docx format and opened the file in Microsoft Word 365, and tried compiling to Open Office .odt format and opened the file in Libre Office Writer. Both file formats had the same errors:
Each Inline footnote was divided into multiple footnotes.
The links in the footnotes were compiled as underlined text and not as links.

In settings, Remove all hyperlinks was not checked.
There were no paragraph breaks within the inline footnotes.

Any advice would be appreciated.
Thank you in advance.

Hi ORS-2025, and welcome to the forum.

Testing both Microsoft Word and LibreOffice is a good starting point.

If you have Scrivener compile to RTF and then test the RTF file in both Word and LibreOffice Writer, do you still see the same footnote errors?

If RTF has the same errors, it suggests something odd is happening with how the footnotes are formatted or with Scrivener’s compile settings.

If RTF is fine, then we might look at the converters that produce the .docx file to see if they’re having issues with the conversion.

Thank you very much for your quick reply.
Am having the same error compiling to RTF and opening it in MS Word and LibreOffice Writer.
Sample footnote:
Josephine C. Frost, editor, Underhill Genealogy[:] Descendants of Capt. John Underhill, 4 vols. (n.p.: Myron C. Taylor for the Underhill Society of America, 1932), 2:186-187; imaged, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/underhillgenealo02fros : accessed 24 April 2024) > image 188 of 605.

The compiled output breaks the footnote into three footnotes, similar to this:
1 Josephine C. Frost, editor, Underhill Genealogy[:] Descendants of Capt. John Underhill, 4 vols. (n.p.: Myron C. Taylor for the Underhill Society of America, 1932), 2:186-187; imaged, Internet Archive (
2 https://archive.org/details/underhillgenealo02fros
3 : accessed 24 April 2024) > image 188 of 605.

The URL in footnote 2 would not be a working link, just underlined text in the compiled document (.docx and .odt).

Thank you for testing the RTF option. That’s helpful to know.

I’m seeing some reports of footnote issues on our internal bug report, but I don’t see this specific set of issues reported there.

Do you have a small sample of some other inline footnotes that aren’t working?

I ask because I’ve set up a test between my Mac and Win computers with the one example you noted here. And, my Win machine shows the issues you’re reporting but my Mac doesn’t.

If there are other footnotes that also have issues–perhaps some without hyperlinks–I’d like to get some examples I can test as well.

If you have a small project that demonstrates other inline footnote issues, you can use File > Back Up > Back Up To... and tick the “Back up as ZIP file” option.

You can then email that ZIP to our scrivener-win@literatureandlatte.com email or message me directly with it. If you send it to the help email, please reference this forum thread so we have this conversation for context.

I’ll do some additional testing and see if I can either find a solution for you or get this written up for the Windows team.

I used “remove link” on the URL in the footnote and the footnote compiled to .docx without an issue. When I restored the active link to the URL by adding a space to the end of the hyperlink, compiling to .docx caused the footnote to break into 3 again. The same issue happens to other footnotes with active hyperlinks; footnotes without active hyperlinks are compiling normally.

That’s what I was seeing with testing a hyperlink as well.

Are you only seeing this issue with inline footnotes that have hyperlinks? Or, are you seeing other inline footnotes with issues as well?

I’m thinking of notes that might be particularly long or that cite a publication’s original date as well as a revised edition that’s key to verifying the reference.

Only seeing the issue in inline footnotes that have active hyperlinks. If the hyperlinks are active, the footnote splits before and after the active hyperlink. I tried an inline footnote with two active hyperlinks and the splits only occurred before and after each active hyperlink.
I haven’t tried active hyperlinks in linked footnotes yet.

A footnote with an active hyperlink that breaks an inline footnote when compiled seems to compile without issue in a linked footnote.

Thank you for that additional testing.

I’ll do some more on my end and get this queued for the Windows team to check out.

Thank you very much for your kind assistance.

I’ve done a bit more digging, and I see that this has already been flagged for the Windows team. I missed it in my earlier check.

In that internal bug list, the inspector footnotes are noted as allowing hyperlinks, which you’ve seen in your own testing.

The catch is that Inspector footnotes do not support Scrivener links. If you’re using Scrivener links as well, then this next bit won’t fix the issue for you.

If you are not using Scrivener links, then you can use Scrivener’s Edit > Transformations > Convert Inline Footnotes to Inspector Footnotes command to switch them.

That should then allow you to compile your hyperlinks without the footnote being split into multiple notes.

For anyone else who comes along to this thread later, this bug is specific to RTF, DOCX, and DOC output files.

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Also ran into the problem compiling to Open Office .odt format. Thank you very much for doing all that digging.

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I have discovered a weird problem. In Scrivener, I create an inline footnote that has a URL in it. Scrivener automatically creates a link. When I compile to Word (docx), I find that instead of a single footnote, THREE footnotes have been created: the first contains all the text until the link, the second contains the link, and the third contains the text after the link.

How can this be fixed? I see that this problem doesn’t occur with inspector footnotes, but I’m thinking there ought to be a better solution than “OK, just don’t use inline footnotes!”

Check out this post: Compiling Footnotes, with links in them, splits the notes
@RuthS

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