← Overview

Obsidian footnotes become real LaTeX footnotes — numbered automatically, placed at the bottom of the page.

How you write it in Obsidian

The named form is used for a sentence[^method] and the short form is written
directly at the spot^[a quick aside without a name].

The same source can be referenced twice[^method] in one note.

[^method]: Explained in detail by **Meier**, see [@meier2020, p.~14] and [[02 Methods]].

• Named form — [^name] in the text, plus a definition line [^name]: … anywhere in the same note. The definition is usually placed at the end of the file.
• Short form — ^[text] writes the note directly at the spot, without a name.
• The name is only a label. It never appears in the PDF, and the order of the definitions does not matter.

What Obsitex generates

The named form is used for a sentence\footnote{\label{fn:01_footnotes_method}Explained in detail by \textbf{Meier}, see \cite[p.~14]{meier2020} and \vref{sec:02_methods_methods}.} and the short form is written\\
directly at the spot\footnote{a quick aside without a name}.

The same source can be referenced twice\textsuperscript{\ref{fn:01_footnotes_method}} in one note.

Plain \footnote{…} — core LaTeX, no extra package, nothing to change in your preamble. Numbering is done by LaTeX itself.

How it looks in the PDF

The whole page, so both halves are visible: the raised numbers in the text, and the notes below the rule at the foot. Note that the repeated reference carries the same number, not a second one.

Tips & pitfalls

• Formatting works inside a footnote. Bold, italics, citations [@key, p.~14] and [[wikilinks]] are converted normally. Block elements (lists, tables, images) do not fit in a footnote.
• Footnotes are per note. [^1] in one file and [^1] in another are different footnotes — exactly as Obsidian shows them. A reference cannot point to a definition in a different file.
• Same name used twice produces one footnote with the same number at both places, not two identical notes.
• Long definitions may wrap across lines if the following lines are indented. They become one continuous sentence — the indent means “this still belongs to the footnote”, not “break the line here”.
• Numbering restarts per chapter in book, report, scrbook and scrreprt, while article counts straight through. That is a LaTeX class behaviour, so it changes with the document class set in your Document setup.
• A name without a definition stays visible as plain text (like a wikilink that leads nowhere), so you notice it. A definition that is never referenced produces no output.