InDesign Tips & Tricks

One feature which is often mentioned lacking in InDesign CS5.5 is endnotes, even more annoying if you are using them to make a bibliography. I'll demonstrate the IEEE-endnote style, which basically uses square brackets to enclose the reference number.

They actually seem pretty easy to recreate. First, you need a little setup. Create a paragraph type, this paragraph type should be setup to use a new numbered list. This will automatically create the endnote numbers as you type, as such:

Next, create a table. Be sure to make the lines hidden in both the cell & table styles, e.g.:

Next put all your references down. Insert each one into a new row in the table, and apply your previously created style. You can adjust the indenting of the style to get the alignment to look correct:

Finally to insert a reference, simply use the 'Type -> Hyperlinks&Cross References-> Insert Cross Reference' command, which lets you see your list of references to easily insert the correct one:

The advantage of putting all your references in a table before was you can reorder them alphabetically if you want too, see for example: http://www.kahrel.plus.com/indesign/tablesort.html

If you wish to have another method of referencing the endnotes, you have a few options too. Most likely you will have to hide anything you don't want visible as I demonstrated in my previous post. Or apply a certain character/paragraph style to the cross-reference you insert to make it e.g.: superscript.

With a simple scrip to add the inserting of cross-references on the main right-click menu, productivity could be improved greatly I think! Something to look into perhaps...

I'm far from the first person to suggest using a paragraph style in this manner. Here is a few links to get you started too:

http://carijansen.com/2010/11/13/footnotes-and-endnotes-with-indesign/
Peter Kahrel's site has all sorts of useful scripts and information, browse around it!