How to make footnotes in section headings point to the following verse

Question

I am supporting a user who has footnotes in section headings. He wants the verse reference in the footnotes to reference the verse following the section heading. The basic check for footnote quotations returns an error, saying "Quoted text not found in verse:" How can we resolve this error?

Answer 1

Section headings are treated as part of the verse they follow, not the verse they precede, which sometimes seems a bit unhelpful. For the section in your screenshot I put the footnote at the beginning of 7:53. I also put it at the end of 8:11. I put a square bracket at the beginning and the end of the text and the footnotes mention the brackets.

Comments

As Jan says, USFM treats section headings as being part of the previous verse. Paratext, for better or worse, follows the standard here. So I'm not sure there's a good workaround.
I'll say here that while I understand the logic of USFM from a technical/logical/computer programming aspect, from an actual user aspect I think it's wrong and unhelpful. I think almost anyone's natural inclination is to link the section heading with the following verse, not the previous one. This is one of those flaws I wish could be fixed in the underlying spec.

I do kind of question whether when you go to do final print, if you'll really want the print ranges and/or quotations present when the footnote is in a section heading. In other words, do you really want both the \fr and the \fq markers added to those footnotes? (Both are technically optional.)

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In a couple instances where I wanted a footnote in a header, I have put "Header" (in the vernacular) as the footnote origin reference (\fr). The checks still don't like it so I have to Deny the error, but that is the way that seems best.

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Thanks Jan,

This may be the best solution. I'll see what the translation advisor thinks.