LaTeX Footnotes

A footnote in LaTeX takes one command: \footnote{text}. LaTeX numbers it, places the mark in the text, and typesets the note at the bottom of the page. This guide covers the basics and then the cases that actually cause trouble – footnotes inside tables, section headings and captions, symbols instead of numbers, footnotes without a number, and how to change their size and spacing.

Adding a Footnote

Put \footnote directly after the word or sentence it refers to, with no space before it. The argument is the footnote text:

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}

LaTeX was first released in 1984.\footnote{Leslie Lamport wrote the
original version on top of Donald Knuth's \TeX.} It is still the standard
for mathematical typesetting.

\end{document}

Footnotes are numbered automatically with Arabic numerals. In the article class the counter runs through the whole document; in book and report it resets at every chapter. Footnote text can contain anything a normal paragraph can, including math, emphasis, and \cite commands.

Where the footnote mark goes

Place the command after punctuation if the note applies to the whole sentence (sentence.\footnote{...}) and before punctuation if it applies to a single word (word\footnote{...},). Avoid a space before \footnote; it would separate the mark from the text.

Splitting Mark and Text: footnotemark and footnotetext

\footnote does not work inside every environment. In those places LaTeX gives you two halves of the command: \footnotemark prints the number in the text, and \footnotetext{...} prints the note at the bottom of the page. Use \footnotemark where \footnote fails, then call \footnotetext as soon as you are back in normal paragraph text:

\section[Results]{Results\footnotemark}
\footnotetext{Preliminary data; see Section 4 for the full analysis.}

The short title in square brackets matters: without it the heading, including the fragile \footnotemark, is written to the table of contents and breaks the build. Both commands share the same counter, so they stay in sync as long as you keep them in order. If you need several marks before their texts, pass the number explicitly: \footnotemark[2] and \footnotetext[2]{...}.

Footnotes in Tables

The most common question about LaTeX footnotes: you write \footnote inside a tabular, the number appears, but the note itself never shows up. A tabular is typeset as a box, and footnotes created inside a box are lost. There are three good fixes.

1. footnotemark in the table, footnotetext after it

Keep the mark in the cell and emit the text right after the table. This works with a plain table float and needs no extra packages:

\begin{table}[htbp]
  \centering
  \begin{tabular}{lrr}
    \hline
    Method & Accuracy & Time (s) \\
    \hline
    Baseline & 91.2 & 14 \\
    Ours\footnotemark & 94.7 & 9 \\
    \hline
  \end{tabular}
  \caption{Comparison of methods}
\end{table}
\footnotetext{Averaged over five runs.}

The drawback: if the float moves to another page, the note ends up on the page where the \footnotetext command sits, not under the table.

2. threeparttable: notes directly under the table (recommended)

For table-specific notes, the threeparttable package puts the notes under the table itself, which is what most journals expect. Use \tnote for the mark and a tablenotes environment for the text:

\usepackage{booktabs, threeparttable}

\begin{table}[htbp]
  \centering
  \begin{threeparttable}
    \caption{Comparison of methods}
    \begin{tabular}{lrr}
      \toprule
      Method & Accuracy & Time (s) \\
      \midrule
      Baseline & 91.2 & 14 \\
      Ours\tnote{a} & 94.7\tnote{b} & 9 \\
      \bottomrule
    \end{tabular}
    \begin{tablenotes}
      \footnotesize
      \item[a] Averaged over five runs.
      \item[b] Measured on the held-out test set.
    \end{tablenotes}
  \end{threeparttable}
\end{table}

The notes stay attached to the table wherever it floats, and the markers (a, b, *, †) are independent of the document's footnote numbering.

3. longtable and minipage

The longtable environment supports \footnote natively in the table body (not in the \endhead/\endfoot rows), so multi-page tables need nothing special. For a short table you can also wrap the tabular in a minipage; footnotes then appear at the bottom of the minipage, lettered a, b, c by the mpfootnote counter:

\begin{minipage}{\linewidth}
  \centering
  \begin{tabular}{lr}
    Item & Value\footnote{In thousands.} \\
    A & 12 \\
  \end{tabular}
\end{minipage}

To use numbers instead of letters inside a minipage, add \renewcommand{\thempfootnote}{\arabic{mpfootnote}} to the preamble.

Footnotes in Section Headings and Captions

Section titles and captions are moving arguments: LaTeX also writes them to the table of contents or list of figures, and an unprotected \footnote breaks there. Either protect it or use the mark/text split:

% Option 1: protect, and give the ToC a footnote-free short title
\section[Methods]{Methods\protect\footnote{Expanded from the 2025 preprint.}}

% Option 2: footnotemark in the caption, footnotetext after the float
\begin{figure}[htbp]
  \centering
  \includegraphics[width=0.6\linewidth]{plot.pdf}
  \caption[Loss curves]{Loss curves\footnotemark[1] for all runs}
\end{figure}
\footnotetext[1]{Smoothed with a window of 50 steps.}

Give the number explicitly here: a caption longer than one line is typeset twice, which would otherwise step the counter twice.

The optional short title in square brackets keeps the footnote out of the table of contents, where it would otherwise print a stray number.

Footnote Symbols Instead of Numbers

Redefine \thefootnote to change how marks are printed. The \fnsymbol style gives the classic sequence *, †, ‡, §, ¶, ‖, **, ††, ‡‡:

\renewcommand{\thefootnote}{\fnsymbol{footnote}}  % * † ‡ § ¶ ‖
\renewcommand{\thefootnote}{\alph{footnote}}      % a b c
\renewcommand{\thefootnote}{\Roman{footnote}}     % I II III
\renewcommand{\thefootnote}{\arabic{footnote}}    % 1 2 3 (default)

Only nine symbols exist, so symbol footnotes suit title pages and short documents. To switch styles for one part of the document, make the change inside a group or reset the counter with \setcounter{footnote}{0} afterwards. The footmisc package offers the same thing as an option: \usepackage[symbol]{footmisc}, and symbol* falls back to numbers and warns when you run out of symbols.

Footnote Without a Number

Author affiliations, funding acknowledgements and copyright notes usually need a footnote with no mark at all. Define a small helper once in the preamble:

\newcommand{\blfootnote}[1]{%
  \begingroup
  \renewcommand{\thefootnote}{}\footnotetext{#1}%
  \endgroup
}

% in the document
\blfootnote{This work was supported by grant no. 12345.}

Because \footnotetext is used, no mark is printed in the text and the footnote counter is not advanced. The group keeps the redefinition of \thefootnote from affecting later footnotes.

Footnotes in the Title and Author Block

Inside \title and \author, use \thanks instead of \footnote. It produces a symbol-marked footnote (*, †, ‡) on the title page and does not interfere with the body numbering:

\title{Fast Footnotes\thanks{Supported by the Example Foundation.}}
\author{Ada Lovelace\thanks{Corresponding author: ada@example.edu}
  \and Charles Babbage\thanks{Analytical Engine Lab}}
\maketitle

Changing Footnote Size, Spacing and the Rule

Footnote text is set in \footnotesize (8pt at the default 10pt body size). The layout is controlled by a few lengths you can set in the preamble:

% Space between the text and the footnote area
\setlength{\skip\footins}{1.5em}

% Space between consecutive footnotes
\setlength{\footnotesep}{0.8em}

% Longer rule above the footnotes (default is 0.4\columnwidth)
\renewcommand{\footnoterule}{%
  \kern -3pt
  \hrule width \textwidth height 0.4pt
  \kern 2.6pt
}

% No rule at all
\renewcommand{\footnoterule}{}

For the typographic details, load footmisc. Its options cover most publisher requirements:

\usepackage[hang, flushmargin, bottom, multiple]{footmisc}
\setlength{\footnotemargin}{0.8em}

• hang – hanging indent so wrapped lines align under the text, not the number
• flushmargin – the mark sits flush with the left margin
• bottom – push footnotes to the page bottom even on short pages
• multiple – separate adjacent marks with commas: text^1,2 instead of text¹²
• para – run short footnotes together in one paragraph
• perpage – restart numbering on every page
• symbol / symbol* – symbol marks, as above

To make every footnote slightly larger or smaller, redefine the size command: \renewcommand{\footnotesize}{\small}. In Beamer, footnotes work in frames as normal; inside columns or a minipage, use \footnote[frame]{...} to put the note at the bottom of the frame.

Footnotes and hyperref

With hyperref loaded, every footnote mark becomes a clickable link to its text. This occasionally clashes with footmisc options and with footnotes in tables. If you see “Hyper reference ... undefined” warnings or broken links, disable footnote links only:

\usepackage[hyperfootnotes=false]{hyperref}

Common Problems and Fixes

Complete Example

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{booktabs, threeparttable}
\usepackage[hang, flushmargin, multiple]{footmisc}
\usepackage[hyperfootnotes=false]{hyperref}

\newcommand{\blfootnote}[1]{%
  \begingroup
  \renewcommand{\thefootnote}{}\footnotetext{#1}%
  \endgroup
}

\title{Footnotes in Practice\thanks{Draft of 17 October 2026.}}
\author{A. Author\thanks{Department of Examples, Sample University}}

\begin{document}
\maketitle
\blfootnote{Code and data are available from the authors on request.}

\section{Introduction}
Footnotes carry asides,\footnote{Like this one.} sources,\footnote{See the
documentation of the \texttt{footmisc} package.} and clarifications without
interrupting the argument.

\begin{table}[htbp]
  \centering
  \begin{threeparttable}
    \caption{Runtime per configuration}
    \begin{tabular}{lr}
      \toprule
      Configuration & Seconds \\
      \midrule
      Default & 14.2 \\
      Tuned\tnote{*} & 9.1 \\
      \bottomrule
    \end{tabular}
    \begin{tablenotes}
      \footnotesize
      \item[*] Mean of five runs on the same machine.
    \end{tablenotes}
  \end{threeparttable}
\end{table}

\end{document}

Quick Reference

Related Guides

• LaTeX Tables – booktabs, multicolumn, longtable and colored tables
• Page Size & Margins – Control page layout with the geometry package
• Bold, Italics & Underline – Text formatting commands and packages
• LaTeX Lists – Itemize, enumerate and description lists
• Learn LaTeX – Complete beginner tutorial covering all the basics

Free LaTeX Tools

• LaTeX Preview – Test footnote code with live PDF preview
• Excel to LaTeX – Convert spreadsheets to LaTeX tables
• Citation Generator – Generate BibTeX entries for your sources
• LaTeX Symbols Reference – Browse math operators and special characters