Re: [Docutils-users] HTML processor and Footnotes

[David G. <go...@py...>]

David Abrahams wrote:
> I'm just getting started with ReST, and finding it to be natural
> and a lot of fun to use.

Glad to hear it!

> I did find one behavior that violated my
> expectations, using the html.py standalone processor.
> 
> I was writing along and somewhere in the middle of my text I decided
> to turn a parenthesized section into a footnote:
...
> When I processed this into HTML, I was surprised to find that the
> footnote appeared exactly where I had placed it, instead of near the
> bottom of the page.

Docutils doesn't guess where you want the footnotes to be.  Look at PEPs,
for example; footnotes are in a section called "References" or "References &
Footnotes".  The author might want to add a transition (horizontal rule in
HTML) before the footnotes, or some other decoration.

There are directives planned for gathering footnotes & citations at an
author-specified point in the document, perhaps "footnotes" and "citations"
to keep things simple.  They haven't been implemented yet though.  If you'd
like to try, see http://docutils.sf.net/spec/howto/rst-directives.html for
instructions.

-- 
David Goodger  <go...@py...>  Open-source projects:
  - Python Docutils: http://docutils.sourceforge.net/
    (includes reStructuredText: http://docutils.sf.net/rst.html)
  - The Go Tools Project: http://gotools.sourceforge.net/