Import from Word [format, converted from PDF] won't read footnotes

Scrivener
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Hi all –

Footnotes from word docx won’t port over to scrivener even when I convert the document to RTF. Getting really frustrated. Any insights appreciated.

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This ordinarily should work fine, and here is how you can test it, with the following checklist:

  1. Create a new test project somewhere temporary, from “Blank”.
  2. Type in a couple of words into the starter document.
  3. Use the Insert ▸ Footnote menu command, or shortcut.
  4. Type in a couple more words into the footnote sidebar.
  5. Use File ▸ Compile..., and switch the file type at the top from “Print” to DOCX or RTF. Change nothing else, click the Compile button and save the file somewhere handy.
  6. Locate the compiled file in Finder, and drag it into the open test project’s binder.

It should in every way be identical to what you started with, with the footnote intact. If it isn’t, something very strange is going on with your setup.

Otherwise, now it is time to examine what is different between the compiled RTF file and the one you are trying to import. Using LibreOffice, or another word processor that is good enough to view footnotes properly, is best. Make sure both documents act like they should, when using features that would change how footnotes look, or are numbered when you test inserting a new one early in the file, etc.

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Thanks for this. It worked with a fresh scrivener project and word doc. There must be something really odd going on with this word doc.

The document was originally written in Scrivener, multiple scrivener projects were compiled, and then formatted via a very specific process for my dissertation. I lost the completed diss word doc, so it’s only in pdf form. I then turned that pdf back into a word doc and tried to put it back into scrivener both as a whole document and one copy and pasted chapter and I’m having this issue.

I really need to revise and I’m not sure what’s causing the issue. I really want to put the project back into scrivener in smaller pieces (or even whole if that’s better), but I’m not sure what’s wrong.

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I bet that’s the entire problem right there, then. I wouldn’t want to say nothing out there can take what looks like a footnote, and turn it into a real footnote, but I bet most PDF → DOCX converters will not even try, because that’s a kind of difficult thing to do. It’s the same reason you would lose all of your styles when going from word processing to PDF and then back to word processing. PDF is more like a format for describing how things look, rather than making things look like things based on what they are, if that makes sense. We can see that some text looks like a footnote, but they won’t actually be “footnotes”, in the word processing sense.

Maybe it’s worth asking around, your advisor, or anyone else that might have been sent a copy of the original docx (or at least one more recent than the last compiled one)? Maybe they still have a copy, or a backup system that would let them go back and look for it.

Of course that’s always an option for you as well, if you have Time Machine or similar.

Hopefully you can find something that made the original PDF, because otherwise I don’t think there will be any good news from having it. You can get the text back out, as you’ve done, but even that can sometimes require a lot of clean-up (removing the page numbers, et cetera).

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Unfortunately I’ve come to the same conclusion.

I don’t think there’s a compiled docx version out there that resembles the final version because I incorporated some of my advisors’ revisions in the compiled doc version after my defense. So, alas, I’m going to waste time putting footnotes back in when I go in and revise each chapter! I didn’t want to do all the silly word formatting in the first place, lol, and now here I am.

Lesson learned. Thanks for helping me diagnose the issue. At least now I know what the problem was.

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Sorry to not have better news for you! PDF is good for what it is, but a lot of what makes it good makes it bad for working copy: its stability in looking the same everywhere you open it, whether you have the right fonts or settings or not.

I did a few searches, and mostly came across Microsoft forum threads with people in very similar situations, being told pretty much the same as the above: nobody has taken the effort to make a converter that can deduce and rewrite footnotes from their appearance alone.

Well, at least you’ll be super familiar with all your cites and notes again.