Footnotes

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

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...

In a printed manual or book, the reference mark for a footnote is a small, superscripted number; the text of the footnote is written 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)'.

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

• 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 a single footnote in the end of node style:

   --------- Footnotes ---------
  
  (1)  Here is a sample footnote.
  

• 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 containing 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) Note that the first syllable of "Texinfo" is 
  pronounced like "speck", not "hex". ...
  

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.