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description=Markdown footnotes explained: the [^1] syntax, named labels, multi-paragraph notes, and exactly which platforms support them and which ignore them.;

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Text of the page (random words):
table to markdown toc generator markdown guide cheat sheet learn markdown syntax what is markdown github flavored markdown markdown tables markdown vs html markdown lists markdown links markdown images markdown headings bold italic code blocks blockquotes footnotes markdown glossary faq platforms all platforms markdown in notion markdown in obsidian markdown in discord markdown in reddit open editor markdown editor tools markdown to html table generator markdown to pdf markdown viewer html to markdown table to markdown toc generator markdown guide cheat sheet learn markdown syntax what is markdown github flavored markdown markdown tables markdown vs html markdown lists markdown links markdown images markdown headings bold italic code blocks blockquotes footnotes markdown glossary faq platforms all platforms markdown in notion markdown in obsidian markdown in discord markdown in reddit home markdown syntax markdown footnotes syntax labels and support markdown footnotes syntax labels and support markdown footnotes give you the reference number and note at the bottom pattern from print with the numbering and back links generated for you the catch is that they are an extension not part of the language a file that looks perfect on github can print raw brackets elsewhere this page covers the syntax and exactly where it works try any example in the live editor last updated 2026 07 24 on this page footnotes are an extension not standard markdown wide support but not universal the reference and the definition where the definition goes what the renderer generates for you named labels beat numbers rules for labels multi paragraph footnotes what cannot go in a footnote inline footnotes two limits worth knowing platform support at a glance the reddit row is the nasty one when a footnote is the wrong tool use a parenthetical use a plain link use a manual notes section common mistakes and their fixes three faults with no code to show footnotes are an extension not standard markdown in short footnotes are an extension absent from both original markdown and commonmark a reference such as 1 goes in your prose and its definition can sit anywhere in the file named labels beat numbers because the renderer assigns the display numbers whatever you call them a second paragraph inside a note needs four spaces of indent or it escapes into the body text start with the honest part footnotes were not in john gruber s original 2004 markdown and they are not in commonmark either every implementation comes from an extension php markdown extra defined the syntax in 2005 multimarkdown and pandoc adopted it and github shipped it in 2021 wide support but not universal github gitlab obsidian pandoc multimarkdown and nearly every static site generator handle footnotes reddit discord notion and any plain commonmark parser do not an unsupporting renderer has no fallback to offer so it prints the brackets as literal characters none of this makes footnotes a bad idea only a context dependent one they sit in the same family as tables and task lists from the github flavored markdown set what markdown actually is explains why the core stayed so small the reference and the definition footnotes come in two halves the reference goes in your prose and the definition holds the note text the parser was rewritten in 2019 1 1 the rewrite replaced a regex engine with a proper tokeniser the reference is a caret inside square brackets the definition repeats the same label then a colon a space and the note that is the whole syntax where the definition goes anywhere in the document under the paragraph that references it grouped at the end of a section or all together at the bottom of the file the rendered output is identical because the renderer collects every definition and prints them in one block at the foot of the page two conventions work well keep the definition beside its reference while drafting then move everything to the bottom before publishing or put them at the bottom from the start and treat that block like a bibliography what you should not do is scatter them at random the rendered page will not care but the next person editing the file will what the renderer generates for you three things you never have to write yourself a horizontal rule and a footnote list at the bottom of the page sequential numbers assigned in order of first reference whatever your labels say a return arrow at the end of each note linking back to the exact spot in the text that last one is the part readers notice because it lets them jump down and back without losing their place a footnote referenced twice gets two back links on github named labels beat numbers a label does not have to be a number anything without spaces works our pricing changed in march pricing 2024 the migration is still running migration status pricing 2024 volume discounts moved from 3 tiers to 5 migration status about 60 of rows have been backfilled this is the single best habit on the page numbered labels create the same problem as hand numbered lists insert a note into a long document and you either renumber everything below it or live with 1 2 7 3 named labels never need renumbering survive reordering and tell you what the note says without scrolling the rendered page is unaffected either way readers see 1 2 3 in document order whatever your labels say because the renderer assigns the display numbers labels are purely for you rules for labels keep them to letters digits and hyphens spaces break the match in most parsers so pricing note fails where pricing note works matching is case insensitive nearly everywhere so note and note are one footnote rather than two labels live in a separate namespace from link references so spec will not collide with a reference link called spec tip name the label after the claim it supports not after the source churn figure still makes sense in six months while smith2023 only helps if you remember who smith was reference style links reward exactly the same habit multi paragraph footnotes a footnote can run to several paragraphs a list or a code block the continuation must be indented four spaces so the parser knows it still belongs to the note benchmark all timings come from a 2023 m2 pro single run warm cache only cold start numbers were roughly 40 slower and are excluded because they varied too much between runs bash hyperfine warmup 3 parse corpus md four spaces is the number to remember miss it and the paragraph escapes into your body text at whatever point the definition happens to sit that is usually the very bottom of the file tabs work in some parsers and not others so use spaces exactly as the lists reference recommends blank lines inside the note are fine as long as every continuation line keeps the indent a single line footnote needs no indentation at all that is why the rule only catches people out once a note grows past one paragraph what cannot go in a footnote definitions cannot live inside a table cell on github and a footnote inside another footnote is not reliably supported anywhere headings render but look wrong since the note is already a list item short prose a link a small code sample that is the sweet spot watch out a fenced code block inside a note needs the four space indent on the fences too not only on the code indent one and not the other and the block breaks open taking the rest of the note with it inline footnotes pandoc and obsidian support a shorthand that puts the note text directly in the sentence there is no separate definition and no label to invent the build is reproducible given the same lockfile and toolchain version a caret then the note in square brackets the renderer still numbers it moves it to the bottom of the page and adds the back link for a short aside it is the fastest thing in markdown two limits worth knowing github does not support inline footnotes neither does gitlab nor python markdown as used by mkdocs the line above prints as a literal caret followed by bracketed text which reads as a typo an inline footnote cannot contain a blank line so it cannot hold more than one paragraph once the aside grows convert it to a labelled footnote if a file might land in a repository use the two part label form and keep inline footnotes for obsidian and pandoc the obsidian guide covers the rest of its house extensions and the same portability question platform support at a glance the last column matters most because a footnote that fails does not fail quietly platform 1 reference syntax inline text fallback when unsupported github yes since 2021 no inline form prints as literal text gitlab yes no inline form prints as literal text obsidian yes yes not applicable pandoc yes yes not applicable mkdocs python markdown yes with the footnotes extension no literal brackets if the extension is off docusaurus mdx remark gfm yes no inline form prints as literal text hugo goldmark yes on by default no inline form prints as literal text jekyll kramdown yes no inline form prints as literal text reddit no no is superscript so you get a raised 1 in brackets discord no no every character prints exactly as typed notion no no pasted footnotes arrive as plain text plain commonmark no no reference stays literal the definition line becomes an ordinary paragraph the reddit row is the nasty one reddit uses for superscript your 1 becomes a bracketed raised digit that looks almost right and links nowhere while the definition renders as a stray paragraph nothing reports an error so the post ships broken tip before committing a file to an unfamiliar platform publish one throwaway note and look at the foot of the page thirty seconds of checking beats rewriting forty references later and the cheat sheet tells you which platforms are worth testing first when a footnote is the wrong tool footnotes are for material a reader can safely skip three cases call for something else use a parenthetical if the aside is under about a dozen words brackets in the sentence cost the reader nothing a footnote costs them a jump to the bottom of the page and back on a phone that is genuinely disruptive use a plain link a footnote whose entire content is a url is a link wearing a costume write the 2023 report https example com report and let the reader click it save footnotes for a source that needs context a page number a caveat or the date the figures were pulled use a manual notes section when the target renderer has no footnote support build the pattern by hand with anchors it is more work but it degrades to readable text everywhere revenue doubled in q3 sup id ref 1 1 note 1 sup notes a id note 1 a 1 unaudited internal billing figures back to text ref 1 those tags need a renderer that allows inline html which most do outside chat apps where html is stripped drop the tags and link to the notes heading anchor instead the headings reference covers how those anchors are generated in chat put the note in a following message or a blockquote and stop pretending it is a footnote common mistakes and their fixes 1 missing colon in the definition without it the line is just a paragraph and the reference has nothing to bind to broken 1 the rewrite replaced a regex engine fixed 1 the rewrite replaced a regex engine 2 continuation paragraph not indented the second paragraph leaves the note and appears in the body text broken benchmark timings from a 2023 m2 pro warm cache only cold starts excluded fixed with four spaces benchmark timings from a 2023 m2 pro warm cache only cold starts excluded 3 a space inside the label the reference and definition no longer match so both print literally broken prices changed pricing note pricing note five tiers instead of three fixed with a hyphen prices changed pricing note pricing note five tiers instead of three three faults with no code to show a reference with no definition 3 with nothing to match renders as literal characters in the middle of your sentence search the file for every label before publishing an unused definition the opposite case is silent a definition nobody references is not rendered at all on github so a note you thought you added never appears usually the reference was deleted during an edit and the definition left behind two definitions with the same label behaviour is undefined across parsers some take the first some the last some render both rename one of them the reliable check is to render the file before publishing paste it into the editor and read the bottom of the page every note should be there numbered in the order the text mentions them each with a working back link the complete guide puts footnotes alongside every other element and the faq answers the questions that come up next support data verified 2026 07 24 frequently asked questions are markdown footnotes part of the standard no footnotes are not in original markdown and not in commonmark they come from php markdown extra adopted by pandoc multimarkdown github gitlab obsidian and most static site generators reddit discord notion and plain commonmark parsers print the brackets as literal text where do i put the footnote definition anywhere in the document the renderer collects every definition and prints them together at the bottom of the page so the position in your source file changes nothing about the output keeping them near the reference while drafting and moving them to the end before publishing works well can i use words instead of numbers for footnote labels yes and you should pricing 2024 is far easier to maintain than 7 because inserting a note never forces you to renumber anything readers still see 1 2 3 in document order since the renderer assigns the display numbers avoid spaces in labels why is my second footnote paragraph showing in the body text the continuation is not indented every paragraph after the first in a footnote needs four spaces of indentation to stay attached to the note without it the paragraph escapes and renders wherever the definition happens to sit in the file usually right at the bottom do inline footnotes work on github no the note text shorthand works in obsidian and pandoc only github gitlab and mkdocs print it as a literal caret followed by bracketed text use the two part label form for anything that might end up in a repository related answers why footnotes fail on reddit export a footnoted document to pdf what gfm supports beyond the spec keep learning markdown links inline reference anchor links plus the escaping rules that keep urls intact markdown blockquotes quoting nesting what fits inside a quote github alert callouts github flavored markdown the dialect that added footnotes tables task lists autolinks try the editor try the editor md editor tw a free private in browser markdown editor with live preview plus the deepest markdown reference library on the web tools markdown to html table generator markdown to pdf markdown viewer html to markdown table to markdown toc generator learn what is markdown markdown guide cheat sheet g...