Obsidian Footnotes Plugin
This hotkey lets you:
- Insert a new numbered footnote marker (e.g.
[^1]
) with auto-incremented index in your text
- Insert a new named footnote marker (e.g.
[^Citation]
) in your text
- Adds the corresponding footnote detail (e.g.
[^1]:
or [^Citation]:
) at the bottom of your text
- Places your cursor so you can fill in the details quickly
- Jump from your footnote TO the footnote detail
- Jump from your footnote detail BACK to the footnote
IMPORTANT: You must to set up your footnote hotkeys
After installing and activating this plugin, you still have to SET UP your hotkeys. This is easy and quick:
Settings -> Hotkeys -> Search for "Footnote" -> Customize Command -> Your preferred hotkeys
I personally use:
- Alt+0 as my auto-numbered footnote hotkey
- Alt+- as my named footnote hotkey
If you would like, you can further customize the plugin's behavior in Footnote Shortcut Settings.
Feature Details
Numbered Footnotes
Scenario: No previous numbered (e.g. "[^1]") footnotes exist:
- Given my cursor is where I want a numbered footnote to exist (e.g.
Foo bar baz▊
)
- When I hit
auto-numbered footnote hotkey
- Then a new footnote marker (e.g.
[^1]
) is inserted where my cursor was (e.g. Foo bar baz[^1]
)
- And a new footnote details marker (e.g.
[^1]:
) is inserted on the last line of the document
- And my cursor is now placed at the end of the detail marker (e.g.
[^1]: ▊
)
Scenario: Previous numbered (e.g. "[^1]") footnotes exist:
- Given there is one or more numbered footnotes in my text
- And my cursor is where I want a numbered footnote to exist (e.g.
Foo bar[^1] baz▊
)
- When I hit
auto-numbered footnote hotkey
- Then a new footnote marker with the next numbered index (e.g.
[^2]
) is inserted where my cursor was (e.g. Foo bar[^1] baz[^2]
)
- And a new footnote details marker (e.g.
[^2]:
) is inserted on the last line of the document
- And my cursor is now placed at the end of the detail marker (e.g.
[^2]: ▊
)
Named Footnotes
Scenario: Add a named footnote:
- Given my cursor is where I want a named footnote to exist (e.g.
Foo bar baz▊
)
- When I hit
named footnote hotkey
- Then an empty footnote marker (e.g.
[^]
) is inserted around my cursor (e.g. Foo bar baz[^▊]
)
- Then, I fill in the name I want (e.g.
Foo bar baz[^customName]
)
- When I hit
named footnote hotkey
again
- A matching footnote details marker (e.g.
[^customName]:
) is inserted on the last line of the document
- And my cursor is now placed at the end of the detail marker (e.g.
[^customName]: ▊
)
Universal
Footnote Autosuggest
- automatically suggests similar footnotes to save you time when typing repeated footnotes
Footnote Section Heading
- automatically adds a customizable heading separating your footnotes from the rest of your note
- disabled by default
Scenario: Jumping TO a footnote detail
- Given I'm on a footnote detail line (e.g.
[^1]: ▊
)
- When I hit
auto-numbered footnote hotkey
OR named footnote hotkey
- Then my cursor is placed right after the first occurence of this footnote in my text (e.g.
[^1]▊
)
Scenario: Jumping BACK to a footnote
- Given I'm on - or next to - a footnote (e.g.
[^1]▊
) in my text
- When I hit
auto-numbered footnote hotkey
OR named footnote hotkey
- Then my cursor is placed to the right of the footnote (e.g.
[^1]: ▊
)
More Info
Other Recommended Plugins
- If you're looking for the capability to "Automatically Re-Index Footnotes", check out the Linter plugin, which has the ability to re-index all your footnotes based on order of occurrence every time a note is changed or saved.
Background
This plugin is based on the great idea by jacob.4ristotle posted in the "Footnote Shortcut" thread.
Use case or problem:
I use Obsidian to take school notes, write essays and so on, and I find myself needing to add frequent footnotes. Currently, to add a new footnote, I need to:
- scroll to the bottom to check how many footnotes I already have
- type [^n] in the body of the note, where n is the next number
- move to the end of the note, type [^n] again, and then add my citation.
Proposed solution:
It would be convenient to have a shortcut to automate these steps. In particular, I envision that the shortcut would:
Using the smallest natural number n that has not yet been used for a footnote
- add
[^n]
at the insertion point
- add
[^n]:
to the end of the note, and move the insertion point there.