| Note: LaTeX is a typesetting program. As such, it is capable of complex notations, like the simultaneous footnotes used in critical editions, marginal notes, and footnotes on footnotes and such. This page covers the basics of notes, but is by no means exhaustive. |
Footnotes can be produced in one of two ways. They can be produced with one command, the `\footnote' command. They can also be produced with two commands, the `\footnotemark' and the `\footnotetext' commands. See the specific command below for more information on how these work.
| \footnote | Insert a footnote. |
| \footnotemark | Insert footnote mark only. |
| \footnotetext | Insert footnote text only. |
\footnote[number]{text}
The \footnote command places the text at the bottom of the page where it is inserted and places an autonumbered number in superscript before the text of the footnote. The optional argument, `number', is used to change the default footnote number. Remember that the footnotes are automatically numbered and so the numbers don't need to be changed.
\footnotemark
The \footnotemark command puts the footnote `number' in the text. This command can be used in inner paragraph mode. The text of the footnote is supplied by the `\footnotetext' command.
This command can be used to produce several consecutive footnote
markers referring to the same footnote by using
\footnotemark[\value{footnote}]
after the first `\footnote' command.
\footnotetext[number]{text}
The \footnotetext command produces the `text' to be placed at the bottom of the page. This command can come anywhere after the `\footnotemark' command. The `\footnotetext' command must appear in outer paragraph mode.
The optional argument, `number', is used to change the default footnote number.
Endnotes require the package called endnote. The endnote package uses the same commands for footnotes, but the notes are printed at the end instead of at the bottom of the page.
This is one of the most powerful features of LaTeX. You can label any point in a document with a name of your choosing and then you can refer to that point by name, from anywhere in the document. LaTeX will always work out the cross-referencing number for you, no matter how much you edit the text or move it around.
To mark a point for cross-referencing, use the command: \label{labelname}
After you've marked the point, you can refer to that point later in your document with the command: \ref{labelname}
To refer to the page where the reference is, use the command:\pageref{labelname}
This command can be used with the \ref command.
LaTeX will automatically print the correct section for the reference. For instance, you could use \label{cheese} in your gripping chapter 7, section 3, on cheese. Then, later in your document, if you wanted to refer to that section while in the sentence "While crackers are excellent with juice, cheese is often better. For a full discussion of Cheese, see \ref{cheese}." The reference would appear as:
"While crackers are excellent with juice, cheese is often better. For a full discussion of cheese, see 7.3."
LaTeX has no problems with documents which have labels with no references. But, references that refer to something that isn't labeled will print out as three question marks because having references without labels is an error.
You can type your citations manually, but LaTeX offers a bibilographic database, called BIBTeX, which makes adding citations, and reformatting them, easy. For more on this, see the page on BIBTeX.