How to use a link as footnote that has special characters inside?

Question

I want to use the following footnote:

\footnote{http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee804826%28Surface.10%29.aspx}

But the problem is since there are % symbols in the link, it is recognized as a comment. How can I avoid that?

Answer 1

Isn't it enough to simple escape the % with \ or am I missing something here? That is:

\footnote{http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee804826\%28Surface.10\%29.aspx}

Answer 2

Just escape it as per jonalv's post or use the \url command from either the url package of better hyperref as shown below:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{hyperref}
\begin{document}
\footnote{{http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee804826\%28Surface.10\%29.aspx}}

\footnote{\url{http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee804826\%28Surface.10\%29.aspx}}
\end{document}

Answer 3

If you don't want to escape %, another solution was discussed here.

In short, load hyperref and define a new macro \urlfootnote as follows:

\makeatletter
\newcommand\urlfootnote@[1]{\footnote{\url@{#1}}}
\DeclareRobustCommand{\urlfootnote}{\hyper@normalise\urlfootnote@}
\makeatother

Now, you can type

\urlfootnote{http:///msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee804826%28Surface.10%29.aspx}

This will also typeset the URL in typewriter font and make it a link. If you don't want this, replace the definition of \urlfootnote@ by \newcommand\urlfootnote@[1]{\footnote{#1}}.