Re: Footnotes/Endnotes formatting

[Michael Norman michael.norman@xxxxxxxx]

At 06:54 PM 1/6/2008, Patricia M. Godfrey wrote:
> In general and in theory, no. The publisher decides how the page
> should look. There have always been gray areas there: if the subject
> is a highly specialized one and the publisher hasn't dome much work
> in that field, he may need to be told, very firmly, what is and is not done.
Sure, Patricia. My interest is in creating the story, not in the
typography or the mechanics of setting up the page. And yes, a good
production editor knows those mechanics and options well. Each house
seems to have its own style as well; i.e. some like running headers,
some not. Whatever. I tell them what I like and they either take it
under advisement or like my last publisher (a division of Random)
they do it the way they want. But they don't always do it well.
Anyway, the issue at hand is this: our editor, who was the EIC of the
house, told us he wants us to consider footnotes beginning with page
numbers. "Can you do it that way?" he asked. I said (knowing I'd run
straight to the list) "sure." I wondered as you did: the pagination
is going to change radically twixt manuscript and typeset, so why
should we "put" the page number now? On Tuesday, I hope to have an
answer to that. Meanwhile, thanks to you and several others, I think
I can now give them what they want --either way -- even if I can't
figure out for the moment why they want it.
Michael Norman