Footnotes on two-columned pages

Hello,

I am wondering if anybody except me is unsatisfied with the placement of 
footnotes on two-columned pages. I am not sure what the specification 
(sorry: CR) says on this topic (I simply do not understand it), but it is 
clear that one cannot influence the placement of the footnote-bodies. 
Either the specification or the "user agent" determine that.

AFAIK, there are two popular layouts:
1) The footnotes are rendered in a one-column region (FOP?, AntennaHouse)
2) The footnotes are rendered in the same column as their corresponding 
citation (RenderX)

Both have their strengths and weaknesses and both are terrible if you have 
many short footnotes on a page - especially, if the footnotes are 
"unbalanced" (say, 2 in the left column, but 20 in the right column).

What I need is to place all footnotes of one page into the right column 
(all 22 in the above example). And I would like to influence the placement 
of the footnotes - at least on a per document(-type) basis.

Do you have similar problems with footnote placement?
Is there a solution? Are there products providing an extension element that 
allow me to influence the placement of footnotes? Or will the final 
specification allow for some flexibility?

Regards,
Thomas Stahl

BTW: I am working for a German publisher of legal books and software. Some 
juristic articles contain more footnotes than content. That's stupid? I 
agree - but would you like to argue with lawyers? I tried it. Once.

Received on Wednesday, 25 July 2001 10:13:58 UTC