Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 90842
Permit to set a footnote anchor prefix/suffix (in the text area)
Last modified: 2013-10-03 22:23:46 UTC
Hi, I'd like to use parentheses, for footnote anchors (in the text area), for better separation. For example: Foobar(1), with «(1)» in superscript. However, although we can add characters, before and after the number, in the footnote area (in the footnote settings, the «Before»/«After» fields -the fact it applies only to the footnote area, is not clear enough, by the way), we cannot add characters to the footnote anchor (in the main content). It is good to keep the two locations independent, regarding prefixes/suffixes. For example, in my case, in the footnote area, I use: 1. Lorem ipsum. There should then be a new set of «Before»/«After» fields, in the footnote settings, to set a prefix/suffix, for footnote anchors. A more global solution (I didn't search for an existing report, but I guess it exists), would be to permit to defined prefixes/suffixes, for any element, like in CSS (the «:before» and «:after» selectors, with the «content» property). This is a low priority enhancement, as we can just add the prefix/suffix manually, which is not too problematic, for footnotes. Thanks in advance to everyone who will work on this.
duplicate *** This issue has been marked as a duplicate of 21263 ***
Issue 21263 talks about problems _importing_ M$word footnotes, but this issue is about _formatting_ NEW footnotes. mathieu_bonnet is talking about the following: He heard quiet steps behind him. That didn't bode well.(1) --- 1. The footnote That is: a prefix and suffix on the _footnote anchor_ and NO prefix nor sufix on the footnote mark. IMHO, this is NOT a duplicate of issue 21263, but not being the original reporter I cannot re-open this one.
As said in issue 21263, the problems are different. issue 21263 is an import problem for footnote mark prefixes, in the footnote area (which are already supported). This issue is about footnote anchors, in the text area (for which prefixes/suffixes are not supported yet, and this is the subject of this issue).
Reassigned to Requirements
I just ran into this problem while trying to format a book with OpenOffice to the specifications of a publisher. They require endnote anchors to be formatted as "[1]" superscripted, and endnote text as "1. Blah, blah". This issue prevents authors from fulfilling the common specifications of their publishers. As such, the importance should be raised well above trivial (P3). Since the specification by publishers of formatting details is so common, and the historical format of note anchors (especially endnotes) quite commonly differs from the bare superscripted number only allowed in OpenOffice, the type of this issue should be changed to BUG. The current implementation that lacks anchor before/after characters never fulfilled the common specifications historically required by publishers. As such, it is a design flaw or BUG. Authors MUST meet the format specifications of their publishers. They have no choice in the matter and no publisher will make an exception because an open-source tool has a bug that does not allow for an historically common note anchor format. This issues now has 8 votes, is critical to an author with a publisher, and has not seen any action for over five years. It needs to be immediately addressed with a much higher priority for the next release.