footnotes and abbreviations

I can't believe I am still suggesting this. I have been a Logos user for at least ten years, and I have suggested this before. I see this more as a glitch to be fixed rather than a new feature.

I often copy and paste from reference books to notes and papers I write.

When I copy a text that has footnotes, I enable Copy Footnotes, so I get the footnotes that the writer puts into his text. but with that enabled, if I copy text which has a lot of abbreviations, like a lexicon, I get all the abbreviations listed with the full word. Oh, and a lot of texts have both footnotes and abbreviations, so I have to go through each one and type over the abbreviations to remove that note from the footnotes.

Logos can't write program that distinguishes between footnotes and abbreviations? Or nobody has brought this up before? Or nobody thought this was important enough to fix?

I still love Logos, but please fix this.

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Comments

Graham Criddle

Or nobody has brought this up before?

It has been raised before - https://community.logos.com/forums/t/131635.aspx is an example

Larry Craig

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1157613#Comment_1157613

Yeah, I brought it up before myself. I didn't need to say that.

thank you.

J. Remington Bowling

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1157615#Comment_1157615

Here's a quick script I wrote that can do this, if you know how (or want) to run a python script:

---



#! python3
#
# Finds abbrev. text with footnotes and relies on the
# coarse nature of docx module to strip the style. Other
# formatting that is attached to the modified runs (e.g.,
# bold) will probably also be removed.

import docx

doc = docx.Document('name_of_your_doc_here.docx')  # Keep quotes, full file path
alpha = ('a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f', 'g', 'h', 'i', 'j',
         'k', 'l', 'm', 'n', 'o', 'p', 'q', 'r', 's', 't', 
         'u', 'v', 'w', 'x', 'y', 'z', 'A', 'B', 'C', 'D', 
         'E', 'F', 'G', 'H', 'I', 'J', 'K', 'L', 'M', 'N',
         'O', 'P', 'Q', 'R', 'S', 'T', 'U', 'V', 'W', 'X',
        'Y', 'Z',)
for par in range(len(doc.paragraphs)):
    for run in range(len(doc.paragraphs[par].runs)):
        check = doc.paragraphs[par].runs[run].text
        try:
            next_run = doc.paragraphs[par].runs[run + 1].text
        except IndexError:
            pass
        if check.endswith(alpha) and next_run.startswith(alpha):
            combine = check + next_run
            doc.paragraphs[par].runs[run].text = combine
            doc.paragraphs[par].runs[run + 1].text = ''
            print(combine)
doc.save('name_of_output.docx')  # Save as different file to be safe

---

PS: docx is a third-party module that you'll have to install with pip install --user python-docx.

PPS: And I know this is a very hacky method... so don't judge me. [:D] I didn't want to take time to do it through regex or messing with the xml. If you wanted to do that, I think you could do so by looking for footnoteReference in the xml and then a look-ahead statement to find '>' followed by [a-zA-Z] group. This assumes that all the legitimate footnotes will follow '>' with a numeric character. (Though I guess one should double check for how punctuation is handled.). And I only tested this with one example, so there might be cases which are missed.

Larry Craig

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1157665#Comment_1157665

Well, this isn't helpful to me, but maybe you can do consult work for FL. This has been a bug from the beginning, and it doesn't look like it is something they intend to fix. I would have thought by maybe Logos 4 or 5, it would have been gone.

But thank you.

J. Remington Bowling

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1157666#Comment_1157666

I doubt it's a bug. My guess would be that making the sort of change you have in mind might require something like creating another data type or class which functions the same same as the other in all cases except exporting to Word. And it's probably just simpler to have them all as one since they function the same in Logos. (It was also a useful feature back when Logos had the send-to-kindle feature.)

Larry Craig

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1157672#Comment_1157672

So you're saying it's too much work and not worth the bother? If it were my program, I would want it to work right, and if it takes a little more work, I would do it.

But that's just me.

J. Remington Bowling

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1157675#Comment_1157675

I agree with you that it's an annoyance to have to go through and delete stuff like LXX from footnotes. But I'm suggesting that it may not be that "it doesn't work right" but rather that the way it works might actually have made the most sense for Logos's own environment and resources--and that might even include them being included as footnotes in Word--when they created it. The ability to toggle this feature on or off might not clear the bar of their cost-benefit analysis. What might seem like a small feature of the over all program could be a *ton* of work that risks introducing bugs and breaking other things.

But hopefully they listen to the suggestion.

Larry Craig

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1157680#Comment_1157680

thank you for your thoughtful response.

To me, they are two very different things. I don't see any reason why they should be connected. One simply copies the footnotes in the text. The other they have to tag the abbreviation to the full nomenclature, and then reproduce that with the abbreviation. Sounds pretty intentional rather than accidental.

But, yes, I sure hope they listen to the suggestion. But at this point, Logos 9, if they haven't fixed it by now, .......