Footnotes in stand-alone text

These are for use in markup outside of music expressions. They do not have a line drawn to their point of reference: their marks simply follow the referenced markup. Marks can be inserted automatically, in which case they are numerical. Alternatively, custom marks can be provided manually.

Footnotes to stand-alone text with automatic and custom marks are created in different ways.

Footnotes in stand-alone text with automatic marks

The syntax of a footnote in stand-alone text with automatic marks is

\markup { … \auto-footnote text footnote … }

The elements are:

text

the markup or string to be marked,

footnote

the markup or string specifying the footnote text to use at the bottom of the page.

For example:

\book {
  \header { tagline = ##f }
  \markup {
    "A simple"
    \auto-footnote "tune" \italic " By me."
    "is shown below.  It is a"
    \auto-footnote "recent" \italic " Aug 2012."
    "composition."
  }
  \relative {
    a'4 b8 e c4 d
  }
}

Footnotes in stand-alone text with custom marks

The syntax of a footnote in stand-alone text with custom marks is

\markup { … \footnote mark footnote … }

The elements are:

mark

is a markup or string specifying the footnote mark which is used for marking the reference point. Note that this mark is not inserted automatically before the footnote itself.

footnote

is the markup or string specifying the footnote text to use at the bottom of the page, preceded by the mark.

Any easy to type character such as ‘*’ or ‘+’ may be used as a mark, as shown in Footnotes in music expressions. Alternatively, ASCII aliases may be used (see section ASCII aliases):

\book {
  \paper { #(include-special-characters) }
  \header { tagline = ##f }
  \markup {
    "A simple tune"
    \footnote "*" \italic "* By me."
    "is shown below.  It is a recent"
    \footnote \super † \concat {
      \super † \italic " Aug 2012."
    }
    "composition."
  }
  \relative {
    a'4 b8 e c4 d
  }
}

Unicode character codes may also be used to specify marks (see Unicode):

\book {
  \header { tagline = ##f }
  \markup {
    "A simple tune"
    \footnote \super \char##x00a7 \concat {
      \super \char##x00a7 \italic " By me."
    }
    "is shown below.  It is a recent"
    \footnote \super \char##x00b6 \concat {
      \super \char##x00b6 \italic " Aug 2012."
    }
    "composition."
  }
  \relative {
    a'4 b8 e c4 d
  }
}

See also

Learning Manual: Objects and interfaces.

Notation Reference: ASCII aliases, Balloon help, List of special characters, Text marks, Text scripts, Unicode.

Internals Reference: FootnoteEvent, Footnote, Footnote_engraver.

Known issues and warnings

Multiple footnotes for the same page can only be stacked, one above the other; they cannot be printed on the same line.

Footnote marks may collide with staves, \markup objects, other footnote marks and annotation lines.

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LilyPond Notation Reference v2.25.15 (development-branch).