how to add footnotes in ibooks author

I'd like this kind of thing for my bibliography... Here is my turnaround :

No automatic footnote is available so, you have to do it manually : type first the bibliography references at the bottom of your text.

Select it and then, create a bookmark. On your text type a number (ex [1]), select it and create an hyperlink.

I hope Bookends can work one day with ibooks author...

nueces - I agree with tlinet's approach, but I'd go a step further. For Footnotes and Bibliographies, I would create new Master Layouts for each. I'd format these Layouts in their own unique style and save them in the Master Layout plus save the text formatting as its own unique paragraph style.

In my textbook I would add new chapters to the end of the book, one called Footnote and the other Bibliography based on the Master Layouts and Paragraph Styles. I would create the text in a different word processor capable of creating footnotes, then copy and paste the final work into IBooks Author. Then I would make the links between the footnote reference and the actual footnote. I may create a new Footnote section for each chapter in the body of the book based on the number of footnotes. The Bibliography would be just one chapter by itself.

Thinking this through, I wonder why Apple did not include Footnote and Bibliography sections like they did Copyright, Dedication, and Foreward. I am sending them feedback on this topic right now. You should too. These are important components of a textbook.

All the best - Fabe

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I love that chapter for 'footnotes'. CLEVER

Thank you. This works, but is cumbersome for the reader, who after reaading the footnote must scroll through the document to pick up with their reading of the text. Apple needs to correct this shortcoming of iBook Author.

I'd suggest, for each footnote, adding another bookmark at the footnote reference and linking back from the footnote to the footnote reference.

Thank you for the suggestions. I attempted to follow the iBooks author directions to insert footnotes from the Inspector Menu--no luck. I got stalled at clicking on the page and seeing a drown down menu.

Yes, this is a huge shortcoming; I wanted to insert footnotes easily as I go and not worry about formatting.

I will preface my suggestion by saying that I haven't tried this yet.

But...could you treat a footnote as a Glossary entry?

So, for example, insert a footnote reference "A1". For example...

"The Higgs Boson A1 has recently been identified as having a mass of around 125 GeV..."

So then when the reader taps "A1" they see your footnote.

Would that work for you?

Cheers,

SPuD

The glossary entry would appear with the title "A1" in this case, which wouldn't be that useful. Better to make the term "Higgs Boson" the glossary entry. But then, that really abuses the glossary meaning, because a glossary entry is supposed to explain the meaning of the term, not to present the extra information that one normally finds in a footnote.

Using a glossary entry also has the disadvantage that each term can appear only once. If you want to attach a footnote to the term "Higgs Boson" in more than one place, the glossary won't work for that.

Michi.

It might help clarify the issue if we all agreed to use the term "footnote" to mean a note at the foot of a page and the term "endnote" to mean a note at the end of the book. The former is appropriate when (a) the note is referenced on only one page and (b) there is no advantage to having it compiled in a list with other notes. It seems that both are essential for any authoring tool.

Hi Fabe,

You seem to be able to save a page layout and put it in the Layout drop down menu. I cannot find out how to this - can you elaborate please.

Ken

Sounds good. I'm interested in the topic. Got Bookmarks...also think I got 'carried away' with bookmarks.

ALL I REALLY WANT TO DO IS PROVIDE LINKS TO WEB PAGE ARTICLES?

Am I making a mountain out of a molehill?

Are there copywrite or Apple mandate problems with LINKS TO WEB PAGE ARTICLES (only).

??

Hi Nueces, I'm still using a similar solution of that explained by Fabe.

I haven’t still find a better method.

Hope Apple will develop an automatic system for footnotes integration which could offer a much easier and kind reading experience for the reader.

Am I crazy, or did iBooks Author used to allow footnoting? I just opened a project I haven't worked on for a year. It has footnotes, but they don't link, and there is no way to edit or add more. I can't find any reference to footnoting in current Help files. Did Apple originally have footnoting (actually endnotes in my case) and then remove support for them?

I think that footnotes were NOT included as s standard/ normal function.

There have been many posts in the past about workarounds and this thread starter is dated Feb 2012, which is,...if I remember right, about the time iBooks Author was first released...and the subject is about footnotes not being available.

If we look at the way that footnotes are handled in ePub 3, I think that we'll see the emerging convention for authorial notes in digital documents that reflow the text depending upon orientation and viewport size. The way it's done in ePub 3 is to link a popup to an area of text big enough to hit with a tap. The popup contains the citation and any other notes the author wants to make available to the reader. These are actually superior traditional footnotes IMO.

I have been able to simulate this in iBooks Author by locking the orientation to landscape and using the pop-over widget. The image is a black square that I place atop the text that the reader will need to click on in order to invoke the pop-over and its text notation. Lastly, I set the opacity of that image to zero. Unfortunately, this invisible graphic cannot be made to move with the text so subsequent changes to the text cause alignment issues. Still, it's a decent workaround.

So, what should we be lobbying Apple for using the feedback feature in iBooks Author?

One model is the reader notation feature in all multi-touch books. The reader is given several highlight colors plus an underline to choose from. In addition, the reader can add a note. The note adds a small square to the left of the line containing he highlight. Clicking on this square invokes the note. Being linked to a word or phrase, this note adjusts to orientation changes. There are other attributes of reader notes but we can ignore those for the moment.

Another approach might add a popover to the 'Link to' menu of the Link inspector. In this case there would be a new style element that set the color of that text to something different than the Hyperlink style. Tapping the linked word or phrase would invoke the popover containing citation, etc.

Other ideas?