footnotes numbering problem

users
#1

Hi,
In this example document, each footnote number was inserted manually in LibreOffice Writer. Now, is there a way to convert them all to automatically, sequentially numbered footnotes? I tried to do this in MS Word (2007), but to no avail. For some reason Word doesn't even recognize the footnote references.

Thank you in advance
Wojciech

#2

In this example document, ...

The document is a .docx file. It might be more sensible to save this in .odt format.

... each footnote number was inserted manually in LibreOffice Writer. Now, is there a way to convert them all to automatically, sequentially numbered footnotes?

I don't see an automatic method, but there is a manual techniques that is quite straightforward.

o Either: place the cursor on the first footnote anchor, so that it changes from I-beam to a hand, and go to right-click | Footnote/Endnote... .
o Or: place the cursor immediately to the left of the first footnote anchor and go to Edit | Footnote/Endnote... .
o In the Edit Footnote/Endnote dialogue, the Numbering type is shown as Character; change this to Automatic.
o *Don't* click OK, but instead click the right-arrow at bottom right to move to the next footnote anchor.
o Repeat the process, clicking Automatic and the right-arrow each time.
o When the right-arrow becomes greyed out, you have come to the end of the footnote anchors; click OK.

o The label in the footnote now labelled "D" has different format from the others, as it has a different paragraph style. Open the Styles and Formatting window and correct this.

o The footnotes are now labelled A, B, C, etc. If you want to change this - perhaps to the conventional 1, 2, 3, etc. - go to Tools | Footnotes/Endnotes... | Footnotes | AutoNumbering

Numbering and make your choice.

I trust this helps.

Brian Barker

#3

Hello, thank you both for your answers. A new link to the same document, saved as ODT: https://copy.com/t38Z7xRx9CrSjiNI – hope this one will open flawlessly.

I don't see an automatic method, but there is a manual techniques that is quite straightforward.

I know the manual way of doing it – although I had a good reason to ask about an automatic method: the original file contains 1000+ footnotes :slight_smile:
This should have been written it at the very beginning: I am quite familiar with LO Writer and really have tried out different options. I decided ask my question because I really don't know what to do now.
Wojciech

#4

I know the manual way of doing it - although I had a good reason to ask about an automatic method: the original file contains 1000+ footnotes :slight_smile: This should have been written it at the very beginning: I am quite familiar with LO Writer and really have tried out different options.

Indeed it should: this would have saved me wasted effort.

I decided ask my question because I really don't know what to do now.

You could unzip the .odt file, extract content.xml, examine this to determine how Automatic and Character footnote anchors are differently represented, edit it as necessary, rezip the .odt file using the edited content.xml - and hope it works! But I don't recommend this.

Brian Barker

#5

Brian Barker wrote:

> You could unzip the .odt file, extract
> content.xml, examine this to determine how
> Automatic and Character footnote anchors are
> differently represented, edit it as necessary,
> rezip the .odt file using the edited content.xml
> - and hope it works! But I don't recommend this.
>
I tried this out and it appears to be easy:

The text is in the content.xml file in the zip file.
The footnotes are of the form

<text:note-citation text:label="6">6</text:note-citation>
followed by a <text:note-body>
(For some reason all the footnote numbers are equal to the last one:6)

In an automatic footnote, the text:label="6" part is missing. So removing this, changes them to automatic. Then, they will be numbered A, B, C, ... If you want to change this to numbers, do it with Tools > Footnotes > Numbering as has been mentioned by Brian in an earlier message.

Of course you should do this on a copy of your file, not on the original (or have a copy saved).

#6

Thank you Brian, thank you Piet!
Worked just fine (in the original large file too). I do appreciate your help, it saved me a lot of time and work.
If applied carefully, your method is a simple and useful tool to convert footnotes.

Best regards
Wojciech

W dniu 21.01.2016 o 12:21, Piet van Oostrum pisze: