Formatting, footnotes & sources
Text blocks in a lesson can have a little formatting and footnotes, and a footnote can cite one of the lesson's sources. You list each source once, in the lesson's Sources card, and footnotes anywhere in the text can point to it. Footnotes are numbered in reading order through the whole lesson, and the lesson ends with a Notes list and a Sources list.
What you can do
| Available | Not available |
|---|---|
| Bold, italic, underline | Headings, lists, links, code, line breaks |
| Footnotes that cite a source, with a page | Pictures or other media inside a text block |
| Footnotes with a note of your own | Footnotes in question, picture or VAKT blocks |
| A footnote that does both (a citation and a note) | Formatting in any block other than a text block |
The set is small on purpose. A lesson is read aloud to a speller and printed for whoever is running it, ALL CAPS already marks the spelling words, and sections already give a lesson its structure. Italics are there for things like book titles and scientific names, and footnotes for sources.
Formatting text
Each text block has a small toolbar with Bold, Italic, Underline and Footnote. Select some words and press a button to format them.
Adding a footnote
- Put the cursor where the footnote should go, or select the words it's about. The footnote goes after them.
- Press Footnote.
- Under Source, pick one of the lesson's sources, or No source, just a note. If the source isn't in the list yet, choose Add a new source to add it from here.
- Optionally fill in Page or section (such as "p. 12") and a Note.
- Press Add footnote.
Footnotes show in the text as small numbers. Click one to open it again, where you can change it and press Save, or press Remove footnote.
The Sources card
The lesson's sources are listed in the Sources card at the end of the editor, after the last section, which is also where they print. Press Add source to add one. Each source has a Title, Author, Publisher or website, Year and Link. They're all optional, but a source needs at least a title, an author or a link to be printed. Links have to start with http://, https:// or mailto:, or they won't be shown.
The card says how often each source is cited ("Cited once", "Cited 3 times", or "Not cited in the text"). Removing a source that's cited asks first, then takes its citations out of the text: a footnote that only cited that source is removed, and one that also had a note keeps the note.
Where it shows up
- On the lesson page and in Preview, formatting shows as written. Each footnote number links down to the Notes list, and each note links back up to where it's used. The Sources list comes after the notes.
- In Word and PDF, formatting is kept, and footnotes become real Word footnotes at the foot of each page. In the PDF they're gathered into a Notes list above the Sources list instead. See Exporting & printing.
- Importing a Word document this app exported brings back the formatting, the footnotes (with their sources and pages) and the Sources list. Footnotes from other Word documents come back as notes.
- Lesson files (JSON) keep everything.
- Interactive mode shows the formatting but not the footnote numbers, since that screen is what the speller reads. Reading aloud reads just the words.
- Translation translates each paragraph's words and the footnote notes. A translated paragraph loses its formatting, and its footnote numbers move to the end of the paragraph. Sources aren't translated, since titles, authors and publishers are names. See Translation.
If two people edit the same text block at exactly the same moment during live collaboration, the later change wins. Editing different blocks, or different sources, is no problem.
For how this works, see the developer notes.