Hello,
I’ve started using Scrivener not too long ago to write my thesis. The body of the text needs to contain either footnotes or endnotes, but I can’t figure out how to insert them. On Word it’s quite simple: you just insert a footnote at the end of the sentence, and it automatically adds it at the bottom of the page where you can write the reference. Can anyone please tell me how to do the same on Scrivener?
Thanks so much!
Hello,
Just use Format > Footnote. This will create a linked footnote that will appear in the inspector. When you go to Compile your work, these inspector footnotes will become end-of-page footnotes if you export them to RTF and open the file in Word, or endnotes if you export to other formats such as PDF. Please see the Help file or tutorial for more information.
All the best,
Keith
Thanks so much for the info!
Would they come out numbered on the compiled version?
Yes, they’ll appear as regular footnotes.
All the best,
Keith
Just make sure you open the compiled document in a word processor that reads them properly. Pages notoriously doesn’t handle the .rtf footnotes as true footnotes, so if you’re using that you’ll want to open the file first in OpenOffice (free) or Word and then save as .doc there to bring it into Pages. Also TextEdit doesn’t do footnotes at all, so you’ll want to be sure to open the .rtf in a real word processor.
Do you know why Scrivener handles footnotes this way? It seems cumbersome. At least an option to simply view the notes as they would appear on a page would be a nice option.
I’m the developer, so I should know, yes. They appear this way because Scrivener is a drafting tool, not a layout tool, and showing them at the bottom of the page would take a full layout engine (and a full team of developers and a higher price 
). Most users don’t find it “cumbersome”, especially the inspector comments. But I wouldn’t pretend that Scrivener is for everyone - if you need to see footnotes at the end of the page while you draft for some reason then it would be best to stick with a word processor.
All the best,
Keith
Sorry to sound dense, but while we’re on the topic, how do we get Scrivener to compile some of our footnotes as footnotes and others as endnotes when compiling into Word? I need both footnotes and endnotes.
For that you would need to use both inline footnotes and inspector footnotes - you can then compile the two streams separately as endnotes and footnotes.
All the best,
Keith
Brilliant! Thank you!
Another option I forgot to mention, if you don’t want to use inline footnotes, you could use comments for endnotes - you can choose to have inspector comments exported as endnotes or footnotes too when exporting to RTF and Word.
All the best,
Keith