\footnote (LaTeX2e unofficial reference manual (November 2018))

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### 11.1 `\footnote`

Synopsis, one of:

    \footnote{text}
    \footnote[number]{text}

Place a footnote text at the bottom of the current page.

    There are over a thousand footnotes in Gibbon's
    \textit{Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire}.\footnote{%
      After reading an early version with endnotes David Hume complained,
      ``One is also plagued with his Notes, according to the present Method
      of printing the Book'' and suggested that they ``only to be printed
      at the Margin or the Bottom of the Page.''}

The optional argument number allows you to specify the number of the footnote. If you use this then LaTeX does not increment the `footnote` counter.

By default, LaTeX uses arabic numbers as footnote markers. Change this with something like `\renewcommand{\thefootnote}{\fnsymbol{footnote}}`, which uses a sequence of symbols (see \alph \Alph \arabic \roman \Roman \fnsymbol). To make this change global put that in the preamble. If you make the change local then you may want to reset the counter with `\setcounter{footnote}{0}`.

LaTeX determines the spacing of footnotes with two parameters.

`\footnoterule`

  Produces the rule separating the main text on a page from the page’s footnotes. Default dimensions in the standard document classes (except `slides`, where it does not appear) is: vertical thickness of `0.4pt`, and horizontal size of `0.4\columnwidth` long. Change the rule with something like this.

      \renewcommand{\footnoterule}{% Kerns avoid vertical space
        \kern -3pt                         % This -3 is negative
        \hrule width \textwidth height 1pt % of the sum of this 1
        \kern 2pt}                         % and this 2

`\footnotesep`

  The height of the strut placed at the beginning of the footnote (see \strut). By default, this is set to the normal strut for `\footnotesize` fonts (see Font sizes), therefore there is no extra space between footnotes. This is ‘`6.65pt`’ for ‘`10pt`’, ‘`7.7pt`’ for ‘`11pt`’, and ‘`8.4pt`’ for ‘`12pt`’. Change it as with `\setlength{\footnotesep}{11pt}`.

The `\footnote` command is fragile (see \protect).

LaTeX’s default puts many restrictions on where you can use a `\footnote`; for instance, you cannot use it in an argument to a sectioning command such as `\chapter` (it can only be used in outer paragraph mode; see Modes). There are some workarounds; see following sections.

In a `minipage` environment the `\footnote` command uses the `mpfootnote` counter instead of the `footnote` counter, so they are numbered independently. They are shown at the bottom of the environment, not at the bottom of the page. And by default they are shown alphabetically. See minipage and Footnotes in a table.

Unofficial LaTeX2e reference manual