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Footnotes in Beamer: \footnote[frame], No Number, Size and Citations

A footnote in Beamer is written the same way as in any LaTeX document: \footnote{text} inside a frame puts a mark in the text and the note at the bottom of the slide. The differences are in the details: footnotes in columns land under the column unless you use \footnote[frame], the numbers run on through the whole talk, and a footnote behind a \pause shows up too early. This guide covers all of it, plus footnotes without a number, smaller footnotes, title-page notes and citations in footnotes.

Every example was compiled with pdfLaTeX (Beamer, TeX Live). The whole presentation below compiles as it is:

\documentclass{beamer}

% A footnote with no mark, for sources and credits
\newcommand\blfootnote[1]{%
  \begingroup
  \renewcommand\thefootnote{}\footnote{#1}%
  \addtocounter{footnote}{-1}%
  \endgroup
}

\title{Footnotes in Beamer}
\author{A. Author\thanks{University of Somewhere}}
\date{}

\begin{document}

\begin{frame}
  \titlepage
\end{frame}

\begin{frame}{A plain footnote}
  Beamer was written by Till Tantau.\footnote{The class dates from 2003.}
\end{frame}

\begin{frame}{Footnotes in columns}
  \begin{columns}
    \begin{column}{0.5\textwidth}
      Left column.\footnote{Under the column, marked a.}
      More text.\footnote[frame]{At the bottom of the frame, numbered.}
    \end{column}
    \begin{column}{0.5\textwidth}
      Right column.
    \end{column}
  \end{columns}
\end{frame}

\begin{frame}{No number}
  GDP grew by 3\%.\blfootnote{Source: World Bank, 2024.}
\end{frame}

\begin{frame}{Overlays}
  First point.
  \pause
  Second point.\footnote<2->{Shown only from slide 2.}
\end{frame}

\end{document}

Add a Footnote to a Frame

Put \footnote{...} directly after the word it refers to, with no space before it. Beamer sets the mark as a superscript and the note at the bottom of the frame, in a smaller font (9pt with the default 11pt class size) above a short rule:

\begin{frame}{Results}
  Accuracy rose to 94\%.\footnote{Measured on the held-out test set.}
  Training took two hours.\footnote{On a single GPU.}
\end{frame}

The footnote counter belongs to the whole presentation, not to the frame. If the first frame has notes 1 and 2, the next footnote on the next frame is 3. Overlays do not change this: all slides of one frame share the same numbers. To start again at 1 on every frame, see Restart numbering on each frame.

Footnotes in Columns and Minipages: \footnote[frame]

Inside a column or a minipage, Beamer treats \footnote as a minipage footnote: the mark is a lowercase letter and the note is set at the bottom of that column, not of the slide. Usually that is not what you want. The frame option sends the note to the bottom of the frame with an ordinary number:

\begin{frame}{Two columns}
  \begin{columns}
    \begin{column}{0.5\textwidth}
      Left column.\footnote{Under the column, marked a.}
      More text.\footnote[frame]{At the bottom of the frame, numbered.}
    \end{column}
    \begin{column}{0.5\textwidth}
      Right column.
    \end{column}
  \end{columns}
\end{frame}

block, alertblock and exampleblock are not minipages, so a plain \footnote inside a block already goes to the bottom of the frame.

Beamer Footnote Without a Number

Image credits, data sources and “joint work with” lines often belong at the bottom of the slide without a mark. Define a small command in the preamble that empties the footnote number for one note and then gives the number back:

\newcommand\blfootnote[1]{%
  \begingroup
  \renewcommand\thefootnote{}\footnote{#1}%
  \addtocounter{footnote}{-1}%
  \endgroup
}

% in a frame:
GDP grew by 3\%.\blfootnote{Source: World Bank, 2024.}

The note is printed with no number and no mark appears in the text. Because the counter is stepped back, the next normal footnote keeps the number it would have had.

Restart Footnote Numbering on Each Frame

Many speakers prefer every slide to start at footnote 1, since the audience never sees the previous slide’s notes. One line in the preamble does it, using the etoolbox hook that runs at the start of every frame:

\usepackage{etoolbox}
\AtBeginEnvironment{frame}{\setcounter{footnote}{0}}

The reset happens once per frame, so a frame built up with \pause keeps consistent numbers across its slides.

Change the Footnote Size, Color and Rule

Beamer styles footnotes through its font and color templates, so the usual \footnotesize redefinition is not the way to go. In the preamble:

\setbeamerfont{footnote}{size=\tiny}          % 6pt instead of 9pt
\setbeamercolor{footnote}{fg=gray}             % color of the note text
\setbeamercolor{footnote mark}{fg=red}         % color of the marks
\renewcommand\footnoterule{}                   % remove the line above the notes

size=\scriptsize is a middle ground between the default and \tiny. The footnote mark color applies to both the mark in the text and the number in front of the note.

Symbols Instead of Numbers

To mark footnotes with *, †, ‡ and so on, change \thefootnote. Put the change in the preamble for the whole talk, or wrap the frames in braces to limit it to those frames:

{
\renewcommand\thefootnote{\fnsymbol{footnote}}
\begin{frame}{Symbols}
  First claim.\footnote{Marked with an asterisk.}
  Second claim.\footnote{Marked with a dagger.}
\end{frame}
}

\fnsymbol has nine symbols, so combine it with the per-frame reset above if a talk has more than nine footnotes.

Footnotes with \pause and Overlays

Beamer hides the footnote mark together with the text after a \pause, but the note at the bottom of the frame is shown on every slide of the frame. The audience reads the footnote before the sentence it belongs to. Give the footnote an overlay specification that matches the text:

\begin{frame}{Overlays}
  First point.
  \pause
  Second point.\footnote<2->{Shown only from slide 2.}
\end{frame}

<2-> means “slide 2 and later”; use <3-> for text revealed on the third slide, and so on. The same specification works with \onslide, \only and \item<n->.

Footnotes on the Title Page

Use \thanks inside \title or \author for affiliations, funding and acknowledgements. Beamer prints the notes at the bottom of the title frame:

\title{Footnotes in Beamer\thanks{Slides for the reading group.}}
\author{A. Author\thanks{University of Somewhere}}

\begin{document}
\begin{frame}
  \titlepage
\end{frame}

\thanks uses the same counter as \footnote, so the first footnote after the title page continues from the last \thanks number. The per-frame reset above avoids that.

Citations in Beamer Footnotes

Slides have no room for a bibliography on every page, so references often go in footnotes. With biblatex, the verbose style and \footcite print the full reference the first time and a short form after that:

\documentclass{beamer}
\usepackage[style=verbose, backend=bibtex]{biblatex}
\addbibresource{refs.bib}

\begin{document}
\begin{frame}{Footnote citations}
  \TeX\ was designed for beautiful math.\footcite{knuth84}
  A later citation is shortened.\footcite[p.~10]{knuth84}
\end{frame}

\begin{frame}{References}
  \printbibliography
\end{frame}
\end{document}

Here refs.bib holds a normal BibTeX entry with the key knuth84. backend=bibtex makes the example work with plain BibTeX; drop it to use biber, the biblatex default, which Overleaf and latexmk run for you. Without biblatex, put an ordinary citation inside a footnote:

\begin{frame}{Cite}
  Knuth's book\footnote{\cite{knuth84}} is the standard reference.
\end{frame}

\begin{frame}{References}
  \begin{thebibliography}{9}
    \bibitem{knuth84} D. E. Knuth, \emph{The \TeX book}, Addison-Wesley, 1984.
  \end{thebibliography}
\end{frame}

For more citation styles and the full BibTeX workflow, see the bibliography examples guide.

Footnotes in Tables and Figure Captions

A \footnote inside a tabular works in Beamer and the note goes to the bottom of the frame. Captions are different: Beamer sets a caption that is longer than one line twice (once to measure it), so a \footnote inside it prints the note twice under two numbers. Split the footnote into a mark in the caption and the text after the figure:

\begin{frame}{Figure}
  \begin{figure}
    \rule{2cm}{1cm}
    \caption{A box.\protect\footnotemark}
  \end{figure}
  \footnotetext{Figure source: own drawing.}
\end{frame}

The same \footnotemark / \footnotetext pair works anywhere a direct footnote misbehaves. The LaTeX footnotes guide covers it in more detail for articles and reports.

Beamer Footnote Not Showing? Common Causes

  • It is under the column. In columns or a minipage the note sits at the bottom of that column with a letter mark. Use \footnote[frame]{...}.
  • It appears too early or on the wrong slide. The note ignores \pause; add an overlay specification such as \footnote<2->{...}.
  • The mark is there but the note is missing. A \footnotemark needs a matching \footnotetext in the same frame.
  • The number looks wrong. Numbers run through the whole presentation and include \thanks on the title page. Reset the counter on each frame with the etoolbox line above.
  • The note is too large for the slide. Make it smaller with \setbeamerfont{footnote}{size=\tiny} or move long references to a final references frame.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I add a footnote in Beamer?

Write \footnote{text} inside a frame, exactly as in an article. Beamer puts the mark in the text and the note at the bottom of the frame, in a smaller font above a short rule. The footnote counter is not reset between frames, so the numbers keep counting up through the whole presentation unless you reset them.

Why is my Beamer footnote at the bottom of the column instead of the slide?

Inside a column or a minipage, \footnote behaves like a minipage footnote: the mark is a letter (a, b, ...) and the note is set under that column. Use \footnote[frame]{text} to send it to the bottom of the frame with a normal number.

How do I make a footnote without a number in Beamer?

Define \newcommand\blfootnote[1]{\begingroup\renewcommand\thefootnote{}\footnote{#1}\addtocounter{footnote}{-1}\endgroup} in the preamble and write \blfootnote{Source: ...}. The note appears at the bottom of the frame with no mark, and the next numbered footnote keeps its number.

How do I change the footnote size in Beamer?

Use \setbeamerfont{footnote}{size=\tiny} in the preamble; \scriptsize is a slightly larger option. The color is set with \setbeamercolor{footnote}{fg=gray} for the note and \setbeamercolor{footnote mark}{fg=red} for the marks, and \renewcommand\footnoterule{} removes the short line above the notes.

How do I cite a reference in a Beamer footnote?

With biblatex, load it with style=verbose and write \footcite{key}: the first citation gives the full reference in the footnote and later ones a short form. Without biblatex, \footnote{\cite{key}} puts a numbered citation in the footnote that points to a thebibliography or \bibliography frame.

Why does my Beamer footnote show up before the text it belongs to?

When the footnoted text is behind a \pause or an overlay, the mark is hidden on the early slides but the note at the bottom is not, so it appears too soon. Give the footnote the same overlay specification as the text, for example \footnote<2->{...}, and it is shown only from slide 2 on.

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