Footnote Shortcut
approvedby Alexis Rondeau, Micha Brugger
Forked from akaalias/obsidian-footnotes
Makes creating footnotes more fun!
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 hotkeyagain - 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 hotkeyORnamed 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 hotkeyORnamed footnote hotkey - Then my cursor is placed to the right of the footnote (e.g.
[^1]: ▊)
More Info
- For more information, please check the plugin wiki.
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.
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