9

Using the hyperref package, footnotes become clickable and lead to the bottom of the page where the footnote is printed. However, clicking on the footnote's number does not bring the reader back to where the note was referenced in the text.

I'm surprised this is not so since I often find myself reading over the little reference number itself and only noticing at the bottom of the page that there was a footnote somewhere in the text. Then I have to go to the nuisance of skipping through the text again to find it. A simple click on the footnote to make the viewer jump to the line of reference would be really convenient in such instances.

Is there a package (option) for this or could this be implemented by hand?


Update: Ulrike Fischer suggested the footnotebackref package which fulfills exactly this purpose. Unfortunately, it seems to be incompatible with the KOMA-Script classes. A useful solution should really be compatible with KOMA-Script.

3
  • 1
    I'm sure it can be done by hand since I built something like it for references at the end of a book. If no one here points to a known way I will try to modify my solution for this use case. Commented Apr 3, 2016 at 14:40
  • 2
    There exist a package footnotebackref which claims to do this (but I never used it). Commented Apr 3, 2016 at 14:56
  • 1
    @UlrikeFischer Doesn't seem to work. If I load footnotebackref before hyperef, I get an option clash. If I load it after, the option clash disappears but footnotes only work one way. If I remove hyperef completely, nothing changes, i.e. footnotes still clickable only one way.
    – Janosh
    Commented Apr 3, 2016 at 15:02

2 Answers 2

5

Here is a suggestion using a KOMA-Script class together with package footnotebackref:

\documentclass{scrartcl}

\usepackage{footnotebackref}

\deffootnote{1.5em}{1em}{%
  \textsuperscript{\hyperref[\BackrefFootnoteTag]{\thefootnotemark}}\,%
}

\usepackage{blindtext}% dummy text
\begin{document}
Something here\footnote{foo}
\blindtext[2]
And another footnote is here\footnote{foobar}
\end{document}

enter image description here

\deffootnote is a KOMA-Script command und \BackrefFootnoteTag is defined by package footnotebackref.


Syntax of \deffootnote:

\deffootnote[<mark width>]{<indent>}{<parindent>}{<definition>}

If the optional argument is missing <indent> will be used as <mark width>. <parindent> is an additional indent if a new paragraph starts inside a footnote.

The defaults for the KOMA-Script classes are

\deffootnote[1em]{1.5em}{1em}
  {\textsuperscript{\thefootnotemark}}
2
  • Nice. Works well. What does the value in \deffootnote's second argument do? Couldn't detect any changes regardless of input.
    – Janosh
    Commented Apr 4, 2016 at 14:08
  • @Casimir See my updated answer.
    – esdd
    Commented Apr 4, 2016 at 14:26
3

This works out of the box for me with footnotebackref, the loading of hyperref is done by footnotebackref already.

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{footnotebackref}
%\usepackage{hyperref}


\usepackage{blindtext}

\begin{document}

Something here\footnote{foo}

\blindtext[2]

And another footnote is here\footnote{foobar}

\end{document}
4
  • I took your MWE and indeed it worked for me too. Did some testing in the documents I'm currently writing. Apparently, footnotebackref doesn't work with them because I'm using the scrartcl class. Since I really need KOMA-script compatibility, I'll update my question.
    – Janosh
    Commented Apr 3, 2016 at 19:56
  • @Casimir: KOMA is weird, in my point of view and goes into wrong direction. I don't support KOMA questions, sorry.
    – user31729
    Commented Apr 4, 2016 at 9:15
  • Could you elaborate on what you think KOMA is doing wrong. I would be interested to hear it.
    – Janosh
    Commented Apr 4, 2016 at 9:21
  • @Casimir: I think that KOMA has deviated from its beginning too much, it has become incomprehensible and there are some issues with other packages and KOMA too (other packages, that work very well with other classes, but not with KOMA, so the fault is rather on KOMA's side). I've stopped to answer KOMA stuff about 2 years ago and I don't use it for my private/professional needs too.
    – user31729
    Commented Apr 4, 2016 at 9:30

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