Footnote formatting in ebooks acquired from paragraph

[EricBeaty]

Okay, using a different symbol seems to have solved the asterisks issue. I decided to go with this one (Opt+t on a Mac): †

However, I have some examples for you regarding the footnotes and how they take on the formatting characteristics of whatever text they’re derived from. I’ll show them in three different formats for context.

Ex. 1
Kindle Previewer 3

Scrivener Project

Scrivener Inline Footnote

For this first example, the Kindle Previewer shows the bullet points under the main “Bonus Resources” footnote as left-justified instead of matching the first-line indent shown in the words “Bonus Resources,” which already matches the first-line indent format of the paragraph shown in the Scrivener Project (even though it looks left-justified in the actual Scrivener Inline Footnote).

However, I didn’t bother putting any tabs, extra spaces, or other formatting in the bullets within the footnotes, so this is probably to be expected. (By the way, the word “convey” in the Scrivener Project is the actual inline footnote.)

Ex. 2
Kindle Previewer 3

Scrivener Project

Scrivener Inline Footnote

In Example 2, on the other hand, you can see that the footnote in the Kindle Previewer (beginning with “Note:”) has a weird indent after the first line. As seen in the Scrivener Project, the inline footnote is contained within a bulleted list itself (as signified by the number 2.), which causes the actual footnote to adopt these same formatting characteristics.

However, this doesn’t show in the Scrivener Inline Footnote image, so it’s hard to tell what the final footnote formatting result will be before compiling. I’ve just always made it a point to try and create and attach all footnotes outside of specially formatted text like bullets, quotes—basically any Styles other than “No Style” within Scrivener to avoid situations like these.

It’s definitely not a deal-breaker, but it would be nice to have the ability somewhere within Scrivener—whether in Project Settings, Compile, or any other logical place—to adjust the footnote formatting individually instead of Scrivener taking on the formatting of the Styles/paragraphs they’re attached to.

I hope all this made sense and that it helps others that may be having these same issues. Thanks for all your help.

[AmberV]

Thanks for all of the examples! I’m having difficulties getting testing material to work the same way though. What would really help is to enable the Save source files in a folder with exported Kindle file setting, in the General options tab of the compile overview screen. Looking at the final result in a preview tool doesn’t really say much about what is going on, whereas when I compile a footnote that is attached to a numbered list (I assume that’s what you have in the second example?), this is the footnote I get:

<p class="footnotes"><a href="body.xhtml#fn1" class="fn-label" id="fn1">1.</a> This is the footnote.</p>

There is nothing in here that would cause the hanging indent formatting from the list to transfer into the footnote. It uses the .footnotes class, which is something you can adjust yourself in the CSS compile format pane, but it’s a central definition of formatting that all footnote share.

Maybe it would work better to send a few snippets of sample text that reproduce these issues in a test project. All I’d need is a paragraph or two from these examples, along with the compile settings. Easiest way to do that is to use File ▸ Save As... to create a copy of the working project and start working in it. Clean it all out of anything unrelated to the test, empty the trash, and then close and zip it up for attachment (feel free to DM it to me if you don’t wish to share it publicly). That ensures the section types, layouts, compile format and everything is exactly how you have it set up.

[EricBeaty]

Thanks, AmberV. I’ll get right on this the next time I use my laptop. It’s the computer I use for most of my writing.