How to add footnotes in Markdown

A footnote in Markdown has two halves: a mark in the text where the note belongs, and the note itself on a line of its own. Write them like this:

The house was built in 1838.[^1]

[^1]: According to the parish records, which may not be right.

That is the whole of it. When the document is exported, the mark becomes a small raised number and the note goes to the foot of the page or the end of the document, depending on the format.

The mark

The mark is a caret and a label in square brackets, [^1], typed straight after the word or the punctuation it belongs to, with no space before it. Most style guides put it after a full stop or a comma rather than before:

It rained for forty days,[^2] or so the story goes.

The note

The note starts on a new line with the same mark, a colon and a space, then the text of the note:

[^2]: The local paper said thirty-eight.

Notes can go anywhere in the file, but the usual place is the end of the document, after the last paragraph, with a blank line between each one. That keeps them out of the way while you write, much as they are out of the way at the foot of a printed page.

The numbers are only labels

The label in the brackets does not have to be a number, and it does not decide the number the reader sees. These are both fine:

The first survey was wrong.[^survey] So was the second.[^1]

[^survey]: It used a map from 1902.
[^1]: For other reasons.

When the document is exported, the notes are numbered 1, 2, 3 in the order their marks appear in the text. So you can add a footnote early in a chapter without renumbering every note after it. Keep labels short, with letters, numbers and hyphens only, and use each label for one note.

Things that go wrong

• A space before the mark. word [^1] leaves a gap before the number. Put the mark straight after the word or the punctuation.
• A missing note. A mark with no note of its own is not a footnote. It shows as the plain text [^1].
• Two notes with the same label. Only one of them can be used. Give each note a label of its own.
• A Markdown app that does not read footnotes. Footnotes are an addition to the Markdown standard, read by many apps but not by all. An app that does not know them shows the marks and notes as plain text, which is still readable.

Footnotes in Retroprose

You never need to type the marks in Retroprose. Put the cursor where the note belongs and press Ctrl+F7 (or Ctrl+Alt+F, or Layout, Footnote). The mark goes in at the cursor and a footnote screen opens. Type the note, then press Esc or choose Done to go back to the text, at the same place. F7 goes back too, on keyboards that leave it free.

• Changing a note: put the cursor on its mark, or on any line of the note at the end, and press Ctrl+F7 again.
• Changing your mind: a footnote left empty is never saved, so pressing Esc straight away leaves the text as it was.
• Spelling: spell check and the thesaurus work on the footnote screen too.
• Counting: the word count and word goals include the words in your notes.
• Seeing them: the notes sit at the end of the document, where Markdown expects them, and reveal codes (Alt+F3) shows each mark as [Footnote:1].

How footnotes come out in each format

Every export numbers the notes in order, whatever labels you used.

Footnotes or endnotes?

A footnote sits at the foot of the page where its mark is. An endnote sits at the end of the chapter or the document. Footnotes suit short asides that a reader may want straight away. Endnotes suit long references that would crowd a page. In Markdown both are written the same way, and the format you export to decides where they go: Word and OpenDocument for footnotes, PDF and HTML for notes at the end.

Try it

Open the demo, put the cursor at the end of a sentence and press Ctrl+F7. The demo starts with a footnote already in place, so you can see both halves.