127

I thought that footnotes would have only a problem with the table environment, but none of the answers in

seem to work for the tabular environment.

\documentclass{scrartcl}

\begin{document}
\begin{tabular}{l}
Content\footnote{Footnote}
\end{tabular}
\end{document}
2
  • 12
    what about the classic \footnotemark/\footnotetext approach?
    – cgnieder
    Apr 18, 2013 at 18:45
  • Another simple way to use \footnote is to wrap \begin{tabular} in a minipage. Just surround it with \begin{minipage}{\linewidth} ... \end{minipage}. The footnote numbers will be the letters a, b, ...
    – Jasper
    Nov 9, 2020 at 14:37

9 Answers 9

85

another possibility is with the footnote package and \makesavenoteenv{tabular}:

\documentclass{scrartcl}
\usepackage{footnote}
\makesavenoteenv{tabular}
\begin{document}
\begin{tabular}{l}
Content\footnote{footnote text}
\end{tabular}
\end{document}

If one has both tabular-only environment and tabular inside table, it is possibile to load both \makesavenoteenv{tabular} and \makesavenoteenv{table} in the preamble, like this:

\documentclass{scrartcl}
\usepackage{footnote}
\makesavenoteenv{tabular}
\makesavenoteenv{table}
\begin{document}
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{l}
Content\footnote{footnote text}
\end{tabular}
\end{table}
\begin{tabular}{l}
Content\footnote{footnote text}
\end{tabular}
\end{document}

So to have a more general solution.

Also, a fairly comprehensive list of solutions can be found inside the documentation for the tablefootnotepackage, starting from page 3, section "Alternatives".

8
  • 1
    But this unfortunately works only if one has no table environment around it.
    – strpeter
    Apr 19, 2013 at 8:43
  • 1
    ah! I thought the question was exactly to provide a solution for the case when there is only a tabular environment, not inside a table, as per your MWE. If your tabular is inside a table you can use the tablefootnote package, as per your first link
    – d-cmst
    Apr 19, 2013 at 8:49
  • Your first answer is completely right, but I am always interested in answers that can be generalized.
    – strpeter
    Apr 19, 2013 at 8:52
  • I see it now... if you want a unified approach with the footnote package, just load both \makesavenoteenv{tabular} and \makesavenoteenv{table} and you're all set :)
    – d-cmst
    Apr 19, 2013 at 8:59
  • 2
    @jasikevicius23, I'd leave that to the footnote package documentation. However please feel free to edit the answer if you think it can be improved in any way.
    – d-cmst
    Jun 3, 2014 at 19:01
97

For some reason (my preferred choice) the tablefootnote package only works if you wrap the tabular in a table float. A way around is to use \footnotemark and \footnotetext:

\documentclass{scrartcl}

\begin{document}    
before

\begin{tabular}{l}
Content\footnotemark\\
Content continued\footnotemark\\
Content continued further\footnotemark
\end{tabular}
\footnotetext[1]{Footnote}
\footnotetext[2]{Second footnote}
\footnotetext{Third footnote}

after
\end{document}

Note how manual numbering of all but the first footnotetext is necessary. In a longer document, an approach with manually decrementing and incrementing the footnote number might be more viable; that way, the only way you have to watch out for is decrementing by the correct number:

\documentclass{scrartcl}
\begin{document}    
before

\begin{tabular}{l}
Content\footnotemark\\
Content continued\footnotemark\\
Content continued further\footnotemark
\end{tabular}
\addtocounter{footnote}{-2}
\footnotetext[1]{Footnote}
\addtocounter{footnote}{1}
\footnotetext{Second footnote}
\addtocounter{footnote}{1}
\footnotetext{Third footnote}

after
\end{document}

sample output

9
  • 5
    I need to upvote this! Exactly what I commented, too ;)
    – cgnieder
    Apr 18, 2013 at 18:55
  • @cgnieder: Thanks for appreciating my originality. :D I was typing up the answer when you posted your comment.
    – Count Zero
    Apr 18, 2013 at 18:59
  • 3
    Didn't work for me, \footnotetext content was not rendered at all Oct 12, 2016 at 12:59
  • 6
    Placing multiple \footnotemark in the same table required manual numbering in the \footnotetext[number]{text} command in my case. May 25, 2018 at 6:40
  • 5
    @HennadiiMadan: One has to put the \footnotetext outside the table environment.
    – strpeter
    Jul 3, 2018 at 9:19
23

You can also use threeparttable package to insert footnotes in the tables.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[flushleft]{threeparttable}
\begin{document}
\begin{table}[h]
\caption{Example of test session results}
\label{tab:test_results}
\centering
\begin{threeparttable}
  \begin{tabular}{|l|l|l|}
    \hline
    Mutants & CPU\tnote{1}     & Memory\tnote{2}    \\ \hline
    Mutant-1   & 23 & 15 \\ \hline
    Mutant-2   & 32 & 11 \\ \hline
  \end{tabular}
  \begin{tablenotes}
    \item[1] Measured in percentages.
    \item[2] Measured in kilobytes (KB).
  \end{tablenotes}
\end{threeparttable}
\end{table}
\end{document}

Output:

Table

3
  • Do I understand correctly that this will change the layout of the rest of the table?
    – Kvothe
    Apr 16, 2021 at 15:48
  • I don't think so. I have updated the answer to show how the table would look like.
    – JohnM
    Apr 19, 2021 at 16:14
  • This was a lifesaver. The other answers did not work for me, and threeparttable looks fantastic. It's simple to write and keeps the notes with the table.
    – Nate
    Apr 11 at 21:19
7

I insert footnotes manually at the bottom of the table, which is pretty simple and requires no additional package:

\begin{table}
\caption{The Table.}
\centering
  \begin{tabular}{lrr}
   \hline
          & Variable A & Variable B \\
   \hline
      Item 1        & 234.5 & 678.9 \\
      Item 2~$^{1}$ & 432.1 & 876.5 \\
   \hline
   \multicolumn{3}{l}{$^{1}$\footnotesize{Here is a footnote.}} \\
  \end{tabular}
\end{table}
3

If you use bidiftnxtra (a part of bidi package), all combinations of table and tabular will work. Ofcourse, this only work if you are using xelatex but the approach can be ported to other packages too:

\documentclass{scrartcl}
\usepackage{bidi}
\usepackage{bidiftnxtra}
\begin{document}
\begin{tabular}{l}
Content\footnote{Footnote}
\end{tabular}

\begin{table}[h]
\centering
\begin{tabular}{l}
Content\footnote{Footnote}
\end{tabular}
\caption{This is a caption\footnote{Another footnote.}}
\end{table}
\end{document}
2

I particularly like @CountZero's answer, yet it may happen that your footnote mark is on a different page than your footnote text. In that case, you can move around the \footnotetext to solve that, but how do you become aware of it in the first place?

This code will issue a warning when that happens:

\documentclass{article}

% works with hyperref, too:
% \usepackage{hyperref}

% Footnotes in table with page-number check
\usepackage{refcount}
\newcommand{\myfootnotemark}{\footnotemark\label{fn:mark}}
\newcommand{\myfootnotetext}[1]{\footnotetext{#1\label{fn:text}%
        \edef\fnmark{\getpagerefnumber{fn:mark}}%
        \edef\fntext{\getpagerefnumber{fn:text}}%
        \ifx\fnmark\fntext\else\ClassWarning{}{footnote mark and text on different pages!}\fi}}

\begin{document}
    \begin{tabular}{l}
%       Table stuff \footnote{This does not work: the footnote is missing.}
        Table stuff \myfootnotemark
    \end{tabular}

% uncomment to see the warning:
% \pagebreak

\myfootnotetext{So we do this instead!}

\end{document}

It works only for a single \footnotemark/\footnotetext pair so far, but extension should not be too difficult and those who use this weird hack more than once in a document are hopefully apt enough to adapt my code accordingly :)

1

An alternative solution with talltblr environment of tabularray package:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{hyperref}
\hypersetup{colorlinks}

\usepackage{tabularray}

\begin{document}

\begin{table}[!htbp]
\centering
\begin{talltblr}[
  caption = {Long Long Long Long Tabular},
  note{a} = {It is the first footnote.},
  note{b} = {It is the second long long long long long long footnote.},
]{
  colspec = {XXX}, width = 0.8\linewidth, hlines,
}
 Alpha   & Beta & Gamma\TblrNote{a} \\
 Epsilon & Zeta & Eta   \\
 Iota    & Kapp & Lambdaa\TblrNote{b} \\
\end{talltblr}
\end{table}

\end{document}

enter image description here

1

The package nicematrix provides an environment {NiceTabular} which is similar to the classical {tabular} (of array) but this extra features.

  • When the package is loaded with the key footnote or the key footnotehyper, the commands \footnote are extracted from the tabular (by using the corresponding package: footnote or footnotehyper).

  • There is a command \tabularnote from notes which are composed under the tabular.

Demonstrating example:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{geometry}
\geometry{height=10cm} % in order to have a smaller output (for this post)

\usepackage{booktabs,enumitem}
\usepackage[footnotehyper]{nicematrix}
\usepackage{hyperref}

\begin{document}

\begin{NiceTabular}{l}
\toprule
Content in the first row\tabularnote{A tabular note} \\
Some content in the second row\footnote{A footnote} \\ 
\bottomrule
\end{NiceTabular}

\end{document}

You need several compilations (because nicematrix uses PGF/Tikz nodes under the hood).

Output of the above code

0

As also posted here, you can also use define a footnote outside the table/tabular by using a custom command marklessfootnote, and then refer to it within the table instead.

\newcommand\marklessfootnote[1]{
    \addtocounter{footnote}{1}
    \footnotetext{#1}
}

The marklessfootnote can then be referred to within a table using a regular \ref command, or the cleveref package command \cref with ease, also compatible with hyperref package.

Ref:

%... inside my doc
\marklessfootnote{My footnote \label{ftn:01}}
%... inside my tabular...
\textsuperscript{\tiny\ref{ftn:01}} % With commands to superscript the mark.

Cleveref:

Note to make Cref link the same style as the regular footnote, you can redefine the format as follows.

\crefformat{footnote}{#2\textsuperscript{\footnotemark[#1]}#3} %option to superscript mark.
%... %inside my doc
\marklessfootnote{My footnote \label{ftn:01}}
%... %inside my tabular...
\cref{ftn:01}
1
  • Need to fix hyperref link to markless footnote, as commented on this post.
    – Mr G
    Sep 4 at 3:51

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