If you’re new around here, I have been creating a series of short tutorials to help with some of my frequently asked questions on using Adobe InDesign.
This week, you’ll learn how add and edit the styling of footnotes in InDesign.
Watch the tutorial below for an InDesign export run-down. Or keep reading for the notes from the video tutorial, if you prefer to read along. And if you’re a fan of YouTube, click here to subscribe to my channel for more design tutorials and tips!
A footnote is a note that shows up at the bottom of the page where it's referenced, and it's typically referenced by a small superscript number within the text itself that corresponds with the number of the footnote. (I’m guessing you’ve seen these before!)
To add a footnote, InDesign has a pretty hand tool that helps you automate the whole process (because of course it does).
First, put your cursor in the text where you want the reference number to appear.
Go to Type > Insert Footnote — this automatically puts in the reference number and adds space for the note at bottom of the text box you're in.
To customize the formatting + style, go to Type > Document Footnote Options.
First - turn on Preview so you can see your changes as you make them.
In this window you can choose what type of numbering to use, what number to start on, when to restart numbering, and select a character and paragraph style for the reference number as well as the footnote text. The separator is the space between the footnote number and the footnote text.
I'll create a new Paragraph Style to use for the footnote text – I like to use the same font as the body font, just a few points smaller and a touch of extra tracking (spacing between characters). And for the separator, the default is a tab, but that feels like too much space for my taste, so I'll delete that and use an em space instead which is a little smaller.
Under the Layout tab, you'll find all the spacing options to help you customize the look of your footnote text and the small line (called a rule) that shows up above the footnote and helps separate it from the regular paragraph text. You can play around with the look of all these settings, but I typically keep it simple by adjusting the minimum space before first footnote (so the space between the bottom of the paragraph and the start of the footnotes), the space between footnotes if I know I'll have more than one, and the Offset of the rule (Space between the rule and the start of the footnote) and the stroke weight of the rule.
So there you have it! Using the automated footnote tool in InDesign will help you keep your footnote styling consistent throughout your entire document, plus it'll always keep your numbers in order and showing up on the same page as the reference, so they'll never get separated. A match made in footnote heaven!
Want to learn more about InDesign? Check this out 👇
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