Using \footnote in a figure's \caption

Question

Maybe this is an easy one, but I struggled with this now too long :)

I want to have a footnote in a caption of a figure, see the example.

\begin{figure}[!ht]
  \caption{a figure caption\footnote{where i got it from}}
  \label{somelabel}
  \begin{center}   
    \pgfuseimage{...}
  \end{center}
\end{figure}

The compilation error reads as follows

! Argument of \@caption has an extra }.
<inserted text> 
            \par 
l.192 ...i got it from}}

The actual tex code for my figure with the answer of Leo

\pgfdeclareimage[width=6cm]{aba.medcenter}{aba.medcenter}

\begin{figure}[!ht]
  \begin{minipage}{\textwidth}
    \caption[Medcenter Monthly Medication System]{Medcenter\textsuperscript\textregistered Monthly Medication System\footnote{Quelle Bild: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000RZPL0M}}
    \label{aba.medcenter}
    \begin{center}
      \pgfuseimage{aba.medcenter}
    \end{center}
  \end{minipage}
\end{figure}

leads to the error

! LaTeX Error: Command \itshape invalid in math mode.

in the same line. If I comment out the foot note, everything compiles fine. \textsuperscript\texttrademark isn't the problem, too.

Answer 1

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[demo]{graphicx}

\begin{document}

\begin{figure}
  \centering
  \includegraphics{foo}  ...
  \caption[Caption for LOF]{Real caption\footnotemark}
\end{figure}

Anywhere on the same page where the float appears\footnotetext{blah}
but at least before the next footnote\footnote{the nextone}

\end{document}

The optional argument of \caption should always be used when the list of figures is also being used. Otherwise, you have to \protect the \footnote.

  \caption[Caption without FN]{caption with FN}

A useful alternative is to write a footnote-like comment directly under the caption:

\begin{figure}
  \centering
  \includegraphics{foo}  ...
  \caption[Caption for LOF]{Real caption\textsuperscript{a=}}
  \small\textsuperscript{a=} The footnote-like comment under the caption
\end{figure}

Answer 2

The combination of the answers given by Herbert and by Peter worked for me, i.e. the following code:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[demo]{graphicx}

\begin{document}

\begin{figure}
   \centering
   \includegraphics{foo}  ...
   \caption[Caption for LOF]{Real caption\protect\footnotemark}
\end{figure}

\footnotetext{blah blah blah}

\end{document}

Answer 3

One solution:

\begin{figure}
  \begin{minipage}{\textwidth}
    ...
    \caption[Caption for LOF]%
      {Real caption\footnote{blah}}
  \end{minipage}
\end{figure}

See the TeX FAQ: Footnotes in captions

Answer 4

Best way to put the footnote on the same page of the figure:

\usepackage{afterpage}

\afterpage{
  \begin{figure}
    \begin{center}
      \includegraphics[scale=0.75]{images/the_cited.png}
        \caption[The LOF caption]{Lorem ipsum. {\tiny Example\footnotemark}}
    \label{fig:cited_img}
    \end{center}
  \end{figure}
  \footnotetext{Source: \url{http://www.example.com/the_image.png}
}

Fonte: http://blog.peschla.net/2012/11/latex-footnotes-in-captions/

Answer 5

In all these answers, people are expecting the footnote to go at the bottom of the page. Sometimes, one wishes the footnote at the bottom of the table, if the footnote appears in the table. I have several ways of dealing with that, but here is one:

\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\parskip 1em
\usepackage{boxhandler}
\begin{document}

 Here is an example of a table with a footnote:
\bxtable[ht]{Caption goes here}
{\begin{tabular}{l}
%FIRST ROW OF OUTER TABULAR IS THE INNER TABLE
\begin{tabular}{|l|c|c|}
\hline
Title & Column 1 & Column 2\\    \hline
First Test & 1.234 & 5.389$^\dag$\\    \hline
Second Test & 3.894 & 1.586~~\\    \hline
\end{tabular}\\    %SECOND ROW OF THE OUTER TABULAR IS THE FOOTNOTE
\rule{0in}{1.2em}$^\dag$\scriptsize This is the footnote text\\    \end{tabular}
}

If you look at the form as defined in the .tex file, you will see
several things of note.  First, there is a tabular within a tabular.
The outer (first to begin, last to end) tabular uses a single column and
contains two ``rows.''  The first ``row'' is the inner tablular and the
second ``row'' is the footnote Next, we use the \verb,\dag, command for
the footnote symbol, but you can use any symbol you like.  I also added
two hard spaces after the 1.586 so that the column alignment wasn't
messed up by the dagger.  I used the rule command of 0 width and 1.2em
height to set the footnote offset below the table.  Making 1.2 a greater
number will increase the offset and vice versa.  Finally, you will note
that I used {\scriptsize\verb,\scriptsize,} to change the size of the
footnote text.  You could make it {\footnotesize\verb,\footnotesize,} or
even keep it the same size as the table {\small\verb,\small,}.

\end{document}

Answer 6

To use the usual \footnote command inside \caption and obtain the usual foot notes at the end of page (not just inside the float as using minipages), you can use the package ftnxtra.

Note that in any case, if the float jump to the next page, the foot note will remain in the same place, so this is always a dangerous practice.

Another problem will be the bottom floats with \footnote, since they are placed by default under the foot notes:

But this problem can be solved using the fnpos or stfloats packages:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{lipsum} % for dummy text
\usepackage[demo]{graphicx}
\usepackage{ftnxtra}
\usepackage{fnpos} % \makeFNbelow by default 
% or \usepackage{stfloats} \fnbelowfloat
\begin{document}
\lipsum[1-3]
\begin{figure}[b]
\centering
\includegraphics[scale=.2]{image}
\caption{A caption \footnote{A footnote}}
\label{label}
\end{figure}
\lipsum[1-2]
\end{document}

Answer 7

As mentioned below, sometimes one wants the footnote under the table, rather that at page bottom. Here is the other way I do it

\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\usepackage{boxhandler}
\begin{document}

This is an alternate way to do a footnote in a table, with the minipage
environment.
  \bxtable[ht]{Caption goes here}
  {\begin{minipage}{187.23183pt}   % GUESS (OR CALCULATE) MINIPAGE WIDTH
  \renewcommand\footnoterule{}     % ELIMINATE LITTLE LINE SEPARATER
  \begin{tabular}{|l|c|c|}
  \hline
  Title & Column 1 & Column 2\\      \hline
  First Test & 1.234 & 5.389\footnote{\scriptsize This is the
   footnote text blah blah blah blahty blah}\\      \hline
  Second Test & 3.894 & 1.586~~\\      \hline
  \end{tabular}
  \vspace{-2ex}                    % SHIFT FOOTNOTE UP
  \end{minipage}
  }
\end{document}

Answer 8

For what it is worth, I simply used a \protect and the regular \footnote seemed to work OK.

Answer 9

I had the same issue with table floats. And the discussion here helped me :)

If you surround the float with a savenotes environment, then the snipped \protect\footnote{foo} works. In some cases where the float is far off, you have to move the whole float in the source to the right place in text where the float mechanism of latex wants to put it. This is a job for the finalisation of a document and it is a workaround for the last open issue which is that the footnote sometimes does not appear on the right page. So for me works:

\begin{savenotes}
\begin{table}[tb]
    \begin{tabular}{...}
    ...
    \end{tabular}
    \caption{foo\protect\footnote{bar}}
\end{table}
\end{savenotes}

Someone should test this with figure floats.

Answer 10

I use minipage, with \protect before \footnote. The footnote text appears right below the figure. This combines several solutions above, the result is quite simple and robust.

The optional argument of \caption, viz., [Short caption] is needed if your document also contains a \listoffigures instruction. If your document does not feature a List of Figures, you can omit the optional argument.

\begin{figure}
    \centering
    \begin{minipage}{1.\textwidth}
    %\renewcommand\footnoterule{} % optional removing footnote bar
        \centering
        \includegraphics[width=.7\linewidth]{somefile}
        \caption[Short caption]{Full caption\protect\footnote{Some footnote text}.}
        \label{fig:somefigure}
    \end{minipage}
\end{figure}

Answer 11

The only way I could get this working, in my case, was using @Leo Liu's answer (in this same topic https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/10182/35364), plus this workaround to get footnote's numbering ok, for it was displaying a symbol, at first. I got something like this:

\renewcommand\thempfootnote{\arabic{mpfootnote}} %so it will show numbers instead of symbols

\begin{figure}
  \begin{minipage}{\textwidth}
  \setcounter{mpfootnote}{1}  % sets footnote's starting number within this minipage to 1
    ...
    \caption{Caption\footnotemark.}
    \footnotetext{Foot notes}
  \end{minipage}
\end{figure}

This was the only way I was able to have image and footnote on the same page, with desired number. \afterpage solution sent the whole image far away from expected, and the others gave me a footnote text on the page right before my image...

Answer 12

The first table in the documentation of the ctable package is a good example, having footnotes in the caption as well as in the table cells. Works for figures, too.

Answer 13

Nothing works fine. The solution is being tricky. Use background colour (white) in the text you wish to hide, i.e., the misplaced footnote number. The problem is fixing the numbering when modifying previous text with more footnotes, you should track numbering.

\begin{figure}[H]
    \centering
    \includegraphics[width=9 cm]{your_figure_file}
    \caption{Your figure's caption$^2$.}{\textcolor{white}{\footnotemark}}
    \label{figure label}
\end{figure}   
\footnotetext{Footnote text.}

---

Some corections

\begin{figure}[H] 
\centering 
\includegraphics[width=9 cm]{your_figure_file} 
\caption{Your figure's caption$^{footnote corresponding number, you should track}$.}{\textcolor{white}{\footnotemark}} 
\label{figure label} 
\end{figure}
\footnotetext{Footnote text.}