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Re: Q: Table footnotes in Word

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From: Cliff Tyllick
Date: Mar 15, 2015 8:58AM

I can think of a solution that is still less than perfect and think of another problem with the original solution—with both solutions, actually.

If you want all notes repeated on all pages on which the table appears, copy the end notes and paste them in the section's footer.

A problem I can see with these approaches is that you will no doubt have multiple citations of each note from the table. That being the case, there is no consistent place to link back to after the end of the note. I don't see a way around that one.

Cliff Tyllick

Sent from my iPhone
Although its spellcheck often saves me, all goofs in sent messages are its fault.

> On Mar 15, 2015, at 2:19 AM, Chagnon | PubCom < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>
> Thanks, Cliff. That's a somewhat workable solution.
>
> But it does mean that the tables footnotes will appear after the end of the
> table, and with a 23-page table in this document, then that means the
> footnotes appear on page 23, and only on page 23 rather than repeated at the
> bottom of each page like most software programs do and users expect to
> encounter.
>
> Although AT users can click the hyperlink and view the footnote several
> pages away, sighted users are hampered. Even though they could click the
> hyperlink, they generally don't. And in the printed version, there are no
> hyperlinks to click.
>
> What's needed is a better solution for tables from W3C and WAI. Right now
> they don't address that tables have footnotes or extend over many pages (one
> of our government clients publishes a 350-page table every quarter --- one
> continuous table).
>
> Just as we have repeating headers on every page of a table, we also need its
> complement, repeating footers on every page that hold the table's footnotes
> and source information.
>
> Adobe InDesign's latest table tools in CC:2014 allow both table headers and
> footers to be designated and repeated on each page. When exported to PDF,
> the tag structure looks like this:
> <table>
> <thead>
> <TR> <TH><TH> etc.
> <tbody>
> <TR> <TD> <TD> etc.
> <tfoot>
> <TR> <TD> etc.
>
> Very easy to set up and it creates a logical structure. However, its use of
> tfoot as a table footer seems to be in violation of WC3's standards, where
> tfoot isn't a footer at all but instead is only a column total, not a table
> total/whatever, and it can't repeat. And because, by definition, tfoot can
> have more tbody after it, it can also be a column subtotal. Why this tag is
> called tfoot is beyond my wildest dreams! It isn't like any footer in any
> software or media anywhere.
>
> So we have a huge disconnect between what our software tools do, what
> publishers need to have done, and what accessibility tags/techniques we have
> to publish content in multiple formats.
>
> Sure makes life interesting, doesn't it.
>
> --Bevi Chagnon
>
>