[Scribus] Thoughts on footnotes

[William F. Maddock]

-----Original Message-----
>From: dwain <dwain.alford at gmail.com>
>Sent: May 12, 2007 1:56 PM
>To: scribus at nashi.altmuehlnet.de
>Subject: Re: [Scribus] Thoughts on footnotes
>
>Thomas Zastrow wrote:
>> In fact, there is just one rule for footnote's positions: they have to appear on the same 
>> page as the text where they were introduced.
>>   
>this is not absolutely true.  there are documents and books written with
>the footnote numbers and then added at the end of the document or book. 
>this had been around for quite some time.  yes, there are still
>documents that place the references on the same page as you suggest, but
>this practice is becoming a rarity.  although they might not be called
>footnotes technically, the end result is still the same.  end notes or
>page notes as they are called, allows the reader to read the document
>unhampered by short pages and making the document contain fewer pages of
>text, thus reducing printing costs.  it also allows the reader to, at
>their discretion and in their own time, read the reference if they are
>so inclined.
>
>by designing the document this way eliminates the footnote problem for
>scribus.

I actually prefer the traditional footnote format, so long as they writers make the "calling" location easy to find. For example, in the NIV translation of the Bible, the footnotes are on the bottom of the page, and each footnote contains a "back-reference" to the verse number that the footnote refers to, making it easier to find in the text; on the other hand, the ESV translation left out these "back-references" and the location in the text is quite difficult to find. I suppose the same can be said for endnotes, of course.