Many types of writing rely on notes to clarify a point, to offer supplementary information that might look out of place in the body text, or even just to give the reader a web address without disrupting the flow of text. There are two main methods of adding these notes— footnotes, which go at the base of the page the anchor is on, and endnotes, which are positioned at the end of the text—and Writer is happy with either. Of course, you can make your own frames at the bottom of pages for footnotes or type endnotes manually, but this goes against our “let the computer do the difficult stuff” mantra. By allowing Writer to organize the notes, you won’t have to worry about ensuring frames stay with their corresponding note numbers, or that the numbers themselves become jumbled up during the editing phase.
To add a footnote or an endnote to a piece of text, click the point where the anchor needs to go (i.e., the text being “footnoted”), and select Insert --> Footnote. This launches a small dialog box that allows you to define how the note is anchored to the text and whether you’re using a footnote or an endnote (see Figure 3-21). Choose Automatic to have a number assigned to the note and anchor, or choose Character to use some other device such as an asterisk. If you opt for Automatic, Writer will also deal with the numerical order of the notes. The Character option allows you to define an anchor character to the text, which is referenced in the footnote. For example, the first note might have an asterisk (*), the second might have a dagger (†), and the third a double- dagger (‡).
Footnotes sit at the bottom of the page, which contains the anchor text, whereas
endnotes are positioned at the end of the main text.
endnotes are positioned at the end of the main text.
Click OK to add the anchor to the text, create a box ready for the footnote/endnote in the appropriate place, and insert the cursor ready for writing. Note that there is a predefined style for Footnotes in Styles and Formatting, which is automatically applied to the text in the footnote. This means you can nip in and edit the format by opening the Styles and Formatting palette, right- clicking Footnote --> Modify, and then refining the
style to fit the rest of the document.
style to fit the rest of the document.
Note If you use a lot of footnotes, it could be worthwhile to add the Insert Footnote Directly (or Insert Endnote Directly) button to the standard toolbar because this will provide one- click note entry. Select Tools --> Customize --> Toolbars. Select the standard toolbar, click Add, and look under the Insert category for the appropriate entry . Click Add again, then click Close, and the icon will be added to the toolbar. Now when you want to add a note, click the icon and begin typing.
