The following options appear in the Numbering and Formatting section of the Footnote Options dialog box:

Numbering Style

Choose the numbering style for footnote reference numbers.

Start At

Specify the number used for the first footnote in the story. Each story in a document begins with the same Start At number. If you have multiple documents in a book with continued page numbering, you may want to start the footnote numbering in each chapter to continue where the last chapter left off.

Restart Numbering Every

If you want numbering to restart within the document, select this option and choose Page, Spread, or Section to determine when footnote numbering is restarted. Some numbering styles, such as asterisks (*), work best when reset every page.

Show Prefix/Suffix In

Select this option to show prefixes or suffixes in the footnote reference, the footnote text, or both. Prefixes appear before the number (such as [1) and suffixes appear after the number (such as 1]). This option is especially useful for placing footnotes within characters, such as [1]. Type a character or characters or select an option for Prefix, Suffix, or both. To select special characters, click the icons next to the Prefix and Suffix controls to display a menu.

If you think the footnote reference number is too close to the preceding text, adding one of the space characters as a prefix might improve the appearance. You can also apply a character style to the reference number.

Position

This option determines the appearance of the footnote reference number, which is superscript by default. If you prefer to format the number using a character style (such as a character style that includes OpenType superscript settings), choose Apply Normal, and specify the character style.

Character Style

You may want to choose a character style to format the footnote reference number. For example, instead of using superscript, you might want to use a character style at a normal position with an elevated baseline. The menu displays the character styles available in the Character Styles panel.

Paragraph Style

You may want to choose a paragraph style that formats the footnote text for all footnotes in the document. The menu displays the paragraph styles available in the Paragraph Styles panel. By default, the [Basic Paragraph] style is used. Note that the [Basic Paragraph] style may not have the same appearance as the default font settings for the document.

Separator

The separator determines the white space that appears between the footnote number and the start of the footnote text. To change the separator, first select or delete the existing separator, and then choose a new separator. You can include multiple characters. To insert white space characters, use the appropriate metacharacter, such as ^m for em space.

The following options appear in the Layout section of the Footnote Options dialog box:

Minimum Space Before First Footnote

This option determines the minimum amount of space between the bottom of the column and the first footnote line. You cannot use a negative value. Any Space Before setting in the footnote paragraph is ignored.

Space Between Footnotes

This option determines the distance between the last paragraph of one footnote and the first paragraph of the next footnote in a column. You cannot use a negative value. The Space Before/Space After values in a footnote’s paragraph apply only if the footnote includes multiple paragraphs.

First Baseline Offset

This option determines the distance between the start of the footnote area (where the footnote divider appears by default) and the first line of footnote text.

For information on the First Baseline options, see First baseline offset options.

Place End of Story Footnotes at Bottom of Text

Select this option if you want the last column’s footnotes to appear just below the text in the last frame of the story. If this option is not selected, any footnote in the last frame of the story appears at the bottom of the column.

Allow Split Footnotes

Select this option if you want footnotes to break across a column when the footnote exceeds the amount of space available for it in that column. If splitting is not allowed, the line containing the footnote reference number moves to the next column, or the text becomes overset.

Footnote split across column.

If Allow Split Footnotes is turned on, you can still prevent an individual footnote from splitting by placing the insertion point in the footnote text, choosing Keep Options from the Paragraph panel menu, and selecting the Keep Lines Together and All Lines In Paragraph options. If the footnote contains multiple paragraphs, use the Keep With Next X Lines option in the first paragraph of the footnote text. You can choose Type > Insert Break Character > Column Break to control where the footnote is split.

Rule Above

Specify the location and appearance of the footnote divider line that appears above the footnote text and the divider line that appears above any footnote text continued in a separate frame. The options you select apply to either the First Footnote in Column or Continued Footnotes, whichever is selected in the menu. These options are similar to those that appear when you specify a paragraph rule. If you don’t want a rule to appear, deselect Rule On.