Help needed with moving footnotes

Last Chance · #1 06-05-2019, 03:05 AM

Hi, my first post and I am stymied by this problem!

I am in the process of writing an incredibly large book (currently 270,000 words) on the history of a glassworks. While writing this it is essential to keep track of the references and sources, hence the need for hundreds of footnotes, although some will be removed when the final edit is performed.

When I started writing, I noticed that the footnotes were being included as a single word count, which I wanted to avoid. The conventional position for the footnote is immediately after the full stop in a sentence, although sometimes they are used in mid-sentence.

To prevent this I decided to try positioning them immediately before the stop, but now I would like to move them all back to the conventional place.

OK, so I know that ^fn (footnote special character) can be used within the Find/Replace dialogue, however, ^fn cannot be used in the 'Replace' field. So, simplistically:
Find: ^fn.
Replace with: .^fn

is invalid.

Can anyone suggest a solution? Any help is much appreciated!

David

macropod · #2 06-05-2019, 05:54 PM

The following macro ensures all Footnote & Endnote references are placed after any applicable adjacent punctuation marks. Any preceding space characters are also deleted.

Code:

Sub FootnoteEndnoteFix()
Application.ScreenUpdating = False
Dim FtNt As Footnote, EndNt As Endnote, Rng As Range
With ActiveDocument
  For Each FtNt In .Footnotes
    Set Rng = FtNt.Reference
    With Rng
      'Eliminate any spaces before the footnote
      While .Characters.First.Previous.Text = " "
        .Characters.First.Previous.Text = vbNullString
      Wend
      'Swap the footnote/punctuation, as applicable
      Select Case .Characters.Last.Next
        Case ".", ",", "!", "?", ":", ";"
        .InsertBefore .Characters.Last.Next
        .Characters.Last.Next.Delete
      End Select
    End With
  Next
  For Each EndNt In .Endnotes
    Set Rng = EndNt.Reference
    With Rng
      'Eliminate any spaces before the endnote
      While .Characters.First.Previous.Text = " "
        .Characters.First.Previous.Text = vbNullString
      Wend
      'Swap the endnote/punctuation, as applicable
      Select Case .Characters.Last.Next
        Case ".", ",", "!", "?", ":", ";"
        .InsertBefore .Characters.Last.Next
        .Characters.Last.Next.Delete
      End Select
    End With
  Next
End With
Application.ScreenUpdating = True
End Sub

Last Chance · #3 06-06-2019, 01:34 AM

Many thanks Paul, that worked like a dream.

Just one slight problem is where a sentence finishes with a single- or double-quote mark:

... and "this is the end of the sentence123."

becomes:

... and "this is the end of the sentence.123"

So I think the code needs to take into account other punctuation marks to make it more universal:

Quote '
Speech "

I doubt that other marks would feature.

Once again, I really appreciate the time you've taken

Last Chance · #4 06-06-2019, 03:44 AM

UPDATE:
I modified this line:

Code:

        Case ".", ",", "!", "?", ":", ";", """, " '"

It appears to work, except for the single quote where a space keeps getting inserted.

macropod · #5 06-06-2019, 06:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Last Chance

UPDATE:
I modified this line:

Code:

        Case ".", ",", "!", "?", ":", ";", """, " '"

It appears to work, except for the single quote where a space keeps getting inserted.

That's because your code has a space before the single quote.

Last Chance · #6 06-06-2019, 07:09 AM

Yes, because it automatically inserts it. I can't seem to make it understand I don't want the space

Last Chance · #7 06-06-2019, 07:12 AM

As soon as I "click away" with the mouse, the space just appears. I also pasted the code into Notebook and pasted it back, but it simply inserts the space. Confusing!

Last Chance · #8 06-06-2019, 07:15 AM

I know why: it's interpreting the single quote as the beginning of a 'Comment and forcing the space.

macropod · #9 06-06-2019, 04:05 PM

That's happening because:
Case ".", ",", "!", "?", ":", """, " '", ";"
should be:
Case ".", ",", "!", "?", ":", """", "'", ";"

Last Chance · #10 06-07-2019, 12:59 AM

Paul, I know that, but if I type "'" in the Visual Basic Editor, the end result is " '" - it is the editor that's adding the space and there's no way I can prevent this. As mentioned in my previous reply, VBE is interpreting this to be a Comment and forcing the space.

If there is no other way around this then I can perform a 'Find' in Word and go through it instance by instance, but it's a bit tedious!

Thanks again, your help has already saved me an incalculable amount of time.

macropod · #11 06-07-2019, 04:34 AM

You need to look more closely at what I posted. It works.

Last Chance · #12 06-07-2019, 07:35 AM

I see - the double-quotes surrounding the double double-quotes and (I assume) the order of the definitions. Not everyone's eyes can pick that up immediately!

But while it worked for the double-quotes, I still can't get it to work for the single quote (') - I pasted your line into the script so there was no ambiguity.

Any ideas?

gmaxey · #13 06-07-2019, 11:20 AM

This adaptation of Paul's code seems to work to move the after a " ' and .

Code:

Sub FootnoteEndnoteFix()
Application.ScreenUpdating = False
Dim FtNt As Footnote, EndNt As Endnote, Rng As Range
  With ActiveDocument
    For Each FtNt In .Footnotes
      Set Rng = FtNt.Reference
      While Rng.Characters.First.Previous.Text = " "
        Rng.Characters.First.Previous.Text = vbNullString
      Wend
      'Swap the footnote/punctuation, as applicable
      Do
        Set Rng = FtNt.Reference
        Select Case Rng.Characters.Last.Next
          Case ".", ",", "!", "?", ":", ";", "'", """", ChrW(8221), ChrW(8217)
            Rng.InsertBefore Rng.Characters.Last.Next
            Rng.Characters.Last.Next.Delete
          Case Else
            Exit Do
        End Select
      Loop
    Next
    For Each EndNt In .Endnotes
      Set Rng = FtNt.Reference
      While Rng.Characters.First.Previous.Text = " "
        Rng.Characters.First.Previous.Text = vbNullString
      Wend
      'Swap the footnote/punctuation, as applicable
      Do
        Set Rng = FtNt.Reference
        Select Case Rng.Characters.Last.Next
          Case ".", ",", "!", "?", ":", ";", "'", """", ChrW(8221), ChrW(8217)
            Rng.InsertBefore Rng.Characters.Last.Next
            Rng.Characters.Last.Next.Delete
          Case Else
            Exit Do
        End Select
      Loop
    Next
  End With
  Application.ScreenUpdating = True
End Sub

Last Chance · #14 06-07-2019, 02:01 PM

Many thanks Greg, that's fixed it.

One Happy Bunny

macropod · #15 06-07-2019, 05:57 PM

Greg's:
Case ".", ",", "!", "?", ":", ";", "'", """", ChrW(8221), ChrW(8217)
is functionally the same as:
Case ".", ",", "!", "?", ":", ";", "'", """", "’", "”"

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