9.3.2 Footnote Styles ¶

Online formats have two footnote styles, which determine where the text of the footnote is located, the ‘end’ and ‘separate’ footnote style.

‘end’

For Info, in the ‘end’ node style, all the footnotes for a single node are placed at the end of that node. The footnotes are separated from the rest of the node by a line of dashes with the word ‘Footnotes’ within it. Each footnote begins with an ‘(n)’ reference mark.

Here is an example of the Info output for a single footnote in the end-of-node style:

--------- Footnotes ---------

(1)  Here is a sample footnote.

In HTML, when the footnote style is ‘end’, or if the output is not split, footnotes are put at the end of each output file.

‘separate’

For Info, in the ‘separate’ node style, all the footnotes for a single node are placed in an automatically constructed node of their own. In this style, a “footnote reference” follows each ‘(n)’ reference mark in the body of the node. The footnote reference is actually a cross-reference which you use to reach the footnote node.

The name of the node with the footnotes is constructed by appending ‘-Footnotes’ to the name of the node that contains the footnotes. (Consequently, the footnotes’ node for the Footnotes node is Footnotes-Footnotes!) The footnotes’ node has an ‘Up’ node pointer that leads back to its parent node.

Here is how the first footnote in this manual looks after being formatted for Info in the separate node style:

File: texinfo.info  Node: Overview-Footnotes, Up: Overview

(1) The first syllable of "Texinfo" is pronounced like
"speck", not "hex". ...

In HTML, when the footnote style is ‘separate’, and the output is split, footnotes are placed in a separate file.

Unless your document has long and important footnotes (as in, say, Gibbon’s Decline and Fall …), we recommend the ‘end’ style, as it is simpler for readers to follow.

Use the @footnotestyle command to specify the footnote style. Write this command at the beginning of a line followed by an argument, either ‘end’ for the end node style or ‘separate’ for the separate node style.

For example,

@footnotestyle end

or

@footnotestyle separate

Write a @footnotestyle command in the Texinfo file preamble.