FrameMaker – special footnote numbering

Somebody wanted to have footnotes numbered like headings comprising both a chapter number and the footnote number, the items seprated by a special character:

2 | 7

This is footnote number 7 in chapter 2: Der froschkönig war es nun endgültig leid, noch länger auf die prinzessin zu warten. Ärgerlich hüpfte er vom brunnenrand, zumal eine dicke fliege sein interesse weckte. Übel hatte ihm die prinzessin mitgespielt! Daß ihm das passieren musste! Öfter als sonst verkroch er sich von nun an in die brunnenkresse und sinnierte über den kleinen grünen steinfresser.

In FrameMaker the footnote numbering mechanism does not use building blocks as the numbering of paragraphs. Hence the special numbering can be achieved only by completely forgetting the footnote numbering process and working with anchored frames containing the footnote and a cross reference to the footnote paragraph.

The following method can be used for any special numbering of "footnotes".

1. At the place in the text where you want to have your footnote reference, insert an anchored frame with property "At bottom of colomn"
2. Within this anchored frame set up a text frame.
3. The text frame contains one or more paragraphs (e.g. with format xfn-xtra-footnote . These paragraphs are numbered. for the above mentioned numbering use this scheme: f:<$chapnum> | <n+>\t
4. The footnote reference is an ordinary cross reference to the footnote paragraph in the anchored frame. For example it may have the formt xfn with this definition: <super><$paranumonly></> . You use the character format super for superscripting here.
5. You will need such an anchored frame on every page where you have footnote references. To avoid to much fiddling around do not fill the pages to tight, that is, make the anchored frame not to small and keep its size over the page as constant as possible.

It is somewhat tedious to size the anchored frame with its inner text frame containing the special footnote(s). The inner text frame should be adjusted at the bottom and above the text frame a separator line is usually placed.

The FrameMaker 7 file special-footnote-numbering.mif is a complete example. Use the anchored frame as a boiler plate element.