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Footnotes

A footnote is for a reference that documents or elucidates the primary text.(9)

Footnote Commands

In Texinfo, footnotes are created with the @footnote command. This command is followed immediately by a left brace, then by the text of the footnote, and then by a terminating right brace. The template is:

@footnote{text}

Footnotes may be of any length, but are usually short.

For example, this clause is followed by a sample footnote(10); in the Texinfo source, it looks like this:

...a sample footnote @footnote{Here is the sample
footnote.}; in the Texinfo source...

Warning: Don't use footnotes in the argument of the @item command for a @table table. This doesn't work; because of limitations of TeX, there is no way to fix it. To avoid the problem, move the footnote into the body text of the table.

In a printed manual or book, the reference mark for a footnote is a small, superscripted number; the text of the footnote appears at the bottom of the page, below a horizontal line.

In Info, the reference mark for a footnote is a pair of parentheses with the footnote number between them, like this: `(1)'.

Footnote Styles

Info has two footnote styles, which determine where the text of the footnote is located:

A Texinfo file may be formatted into an Info file with either footnote style.

Use the @footnotestyle command to specify an Info file's 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 an @footnotestyle command before or shortly after the end-of-header line at the beginning of a Texinfo file. (If you include the @footnotestyle command between the start-of-header and end-of-header lines, the region formatting commands will format footnotes as specified.)

If you do not specify a footnote style, the formatting commands use their default style. Currently, texinfo-format-buffer and texinfo-format-region use the `separate' style and makeinfo uses the `end' style.

This chapter contains two footnotes.


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