FD Footnotes Plugin for WordPress
This plugin provides an extremely easy way to add elegant looking footnotes to your posts. The syntax is natural, simple to understand, and degrades gracefully if the plugin is removed. Footnotes are linked unobtrusively and the note itself links back to the original text where the footnote is referenced.
Requirements
- Wordpress 2.0 or higher
Installation
To install the plugin:
- Copy fdfootnotes.php into wp-content/plugins.
- Activate the plugin from the Plugins tab in WordPress.
Usage
Adding footnotes to a post is simple. Just type them inline in your post in square brackets like this:
Each footnote must have a number followed by a period and a space and then the actual footnote. They don’t have to be unique but it is recommended. It doesn’t matter what the numbers are since the footnotes will be automatically renumbered when the post is displayed.
For example, this:
…produces this:
Footnotes can contain anything you’d like (except square brackets) including links, images, etc. Footnotes are automatically linked back to the spot in the text where the note was made.
Note: Do not include square brackets [] inside the footnotes themselves.
Note: Footnote numbers don’t need to be unique but it is recommended, especially if the text is identical for multiple footnotes. If you have multiple footnotes with the exact same text and number then you’ll get weird and incorrect footnotes on your post.
CSS Styling
Here’s the CSS I use:
.footnotes {
font-size: 85%;
line-height: 1.5em;
padding: 10px 0 10px 0;
}
.footnotes .footnotedivider {
width: 120px;
border-bottom: 1px solid #ccc;
}
.footnotes li {
margin: 0 0 5px 0;
}
sup.footnote a {
text-decoration: none;
font-size: 80%;
}
sup.footnote {
line-height: 0em;
}
.footnotereverse a {
padding: 0 0 0 5px;
text-decoration: none;
}
Compatibility
Some users have reported compatibility issues with the EasyTube and WP-Ratings plugins. If you’re having trouble with Footnotes you might try disabling those plugins to see if that fixes the problem.
License
Copyright (C) 2008 John Watson
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
Version history
- April 1, 2008: Version 1.0 released
- April 28, 2008: Version 1.1. Changed priority so that footnotes come immediately after the post and before widgets appended by other plugins.
- May 19, 2008: Version 1.2. Fixed a bug that made the browser scroll to the end of the footnote when clicking on a footnote reference.
RSS Feed
Thank you, John.
This is a wonderful plugin that has definitely simplified my life because I tend to use use a lot of footnotes.
I hate to ask this but, is there anyway to put a footnote inside another footnote?
Hey, Brent, footnotes with footnotes? It’s not possible with the plugin as-is and it isn’t a feature I had been planning to add.
Thanks anyway.
Hello,
When i copy footnotes from MS word into my post and format it, for example [1. copied text], the plugin can’t seem to format correctly, that is, it doesn’t show the footnote. Is this a bug or a formatting issue of word I can get around?
best,
Jaime
If you can get footnotes to work by typing them yourself then the plugin is working. If it only does not work when you paste from Word then I suspect the problem is that Word sucks. Specifically, when you paste from Word, Word inserts about a zillion lines of invisible junk into your post that is most likely interfering with the functioning of the plugin.
[...] FD Footnotes: “This plugin provides an extremely easy way to add elegant looking footnotes to your posts. The syntax is natural, simple to understand, and degrades gracefully if the plugin is removed. Footnotes are linked unobtrusively and the note itself links back to the original text where the footnote is referenced.” [...]
Is it possible to modify the code
to post the footertext in a box to the right side of the insertion point?
If you’re just talking about moving the footnotes at the bottom of a post around then you can do that by just modifying the CSS for the .footnotes class in your theme.
This makes for very elegant posts.
[...] brauchte also eine Alternative und kann nun FD-Footnotes empfehlen: Schnell installiert, einfach zu nutzen, ein simples und effizientes CSS, das man schnell [...]
Hi John: I love the plugin — just installed it in Wordpress 2.6.3 and it mostly works great. One bizarre problem: when I insert an image in the TOP portion of a fairly long post with a dozen or so footnotes, the entire post displays as blank when rendered by WordPress — both the image and all the text of the post disappear. The length of this top portion seems to correspond to the length of the footnotes area at the bottom of the screen. If I insert an image farther down in the post it works fine. I know it’s weird, but the problem stops when I deactivate your plugin. Any advice? I’d love to keep using this. Thanks in advance.
Hi John – Gotta tell you, I love this plugin. Documenting my sources with FD Footnotes allows my readers to follow the links to these sources.
Sad to say, the only reason I am contacting you is that after upgrading to WordPress 2.7, I started having difficulty using FD Footnotes. I’ve left a note on the WordPress FD Footnotes forum.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Here is an example of what I had to do to get FD Footnotes to work – see Prophet of Doom.
I simply can’t blog without your fantastic plugin!
Thanks Greg and bnavasky, I’ll take a look at that these problems this weekend and release a new version if necessary.
Thanks for checking into it John. If you go to some of the old posts on my blog, you can see the problems I am having with it.