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Markdown footnotes

A footnote is a marker in the text and a definition somewhere else in the file. The renderer collects the definitions, numbers them and puts them at the bottom with links back.

A footnote
Markdown was designed in 2004.[^1]

[^1]: By John Gruber, with Aaron Swartz on the syntax.

Markdown was designed in 2004.[^1]

[^1]: By John Gruber, with Aaron Swartz on the syntax.

Named, and with several paragraphs
Nothing is uploaded.[^privacy]

[^privacy]:
    The parser runs in the browser.

    Indent continuation lines by four spaces.

Nothing is uploaded.[^privacy]

[^privacy]: The parser runs in the browser.

Indent continuation lines by four spaces.

What usually goes wrong

  • Not part of CommonMark. GitHub, Obsidian and most static site generators support footnotes; chat apps and simple renderers show the brackets as text.
  • The label is an identifier, not the number. Renderers number footnotes in the order they appear in the text, so [^1] can come out as 3.
  • A definition with no matching marker renders nowhere, silently.

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