[Docutils-develop] [docutils:patches] #182 An implementation of --latex-footnotes

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- **status**: open-accepted --> closed-accepted
- **Comment**:

"LaTeX footnotes" are supported in [Docutils 0.23](https://pypi.org/project/docutils/0.23/).
I applied the patch and did some heavy testing and refactoring later.
Note that this is still provisional and needs more "road testing". 

Docutils does not handle all cases where standard LaTeX does not support footnotes in special places (like headings, inside tables, ...) as there are different solutions out in optional LaTeX packages and we don't want to force one special approach or dependency on authors.

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**[patches:#182] An implementation of --latex-footnotes**

**Status:** closed-accepted
**Group:** None
**Created:** Fri Jun 18, 2021 11:39 PM UTC by John Thorvald Wodder II
**Last Updated:** Fri May 01, 2026 06:12 PM UTC
**Owner:** nobody
**Attachments:**

- [latex-footnotes.patch](https://sourceforge.net/p/docutils/patches/182/attachment/latex-footnotes.patch) (9.4 kB; application/octet-stream)

Attached is a patch that implements the `--latex-footnotes` option for 99% of use cases.  I don't know whether you'd find it satisfactory enough to accept, but I thought I'd at least try.

Shortcomings of this implementation:

- Footnotes aren't hyperlinked back to their references.  I am not aware of a way to solve this without basically reimplemeting docutils-footnotes.

- Recursive footnotes are not supported and will cause a recursion error.  Support would require tracking and referencing (à la <https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/23158/>) the number that LaTeX assigns to each footnote, which normally resets on chapters and would be broken by packages like footmisc and perpage.

- If the same footnote is referenced multiple times, it will be treated as a new footnote each time.  I believe this has the same solution as the above.

- If a footnote contains two or more nested footnotes, the numbering will be messed up; see <https://tex.stackexchange.com/q/38643/> for a way to address this.

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