The footnote element usually generates a mark (a superscript symbol or number) at the place in the flow of the document in which it occurs. The body of the footnote is then presented elsewhere, typically at the bottom of the page.

Alternative presentations are also possible. In print environments that do not support footnotes at the bottom of the page, they may be presented as endnotes occurring at the end of the component that contains the footnote. Online systems may choose to present them inline or as “pop ups,” or links, or any combination thereof.

Common attributes and common linking attributes.

These elements contain footnote: abbrev, accel, acronym, address, application, arg, artpagenums, attribution, authorinitials, bibliocoverage, biblioentry, biblioid, bibliomisc, bibliomixed, bibliomset, bibliorelation, biblioset, bibliosource, bridgehead, caption (db.html.caption), citation, citebiblioid, citetitle, city, classname, classsynopsisinfo, code, command, computeroutput, confdates, confnum, confsponsor, conftitle, constant, contractnum, contractsponsor, contrib, country, database, description, edition, email, emphasis (db._emphasis), emphasis (db.emphasis), entry, envar, errorcode, errorname, errortext, errortype, exceptionname, fax, filename, firstname, firstterm (db._firstterm), firstterm (db.firstterm), foreignphrase (db._foreignphrase), foreignphrase (db.foreignphrase), funcdef, funcparams, funcsynopsisinfo, function, givenname, glosssee, glossseealso, glossterm (db._glossterm), glossterm (db.glossterm), guibutton, guiicon, guilabel, guimenu, guimenuitem, guisubmenu, hardware, holder, honorific, initializer, interfacename, issuenum, jobtitle, keycap, keycode, keysym, label, lineage, lineannotation, link, literal, literallayout, manvolnum, markup, mathphrase, member, methodname, modifier, mousebutton, msgaud, msglevel, msgorig, olink, option, optional, orgdiv, orgname, otheraddr, othername, package, pagenums, para, paramdef, parameter, personname, phone, phrase (db._phrase), phrase (db.phrase), pob, postcode, primary, primaryie, productname, productnumber, programlisting, prompt, property, publishername, quote (db._quote), quote (db.quote), refdescriptor, refentrytitle, refmiscinfo, refname, refpurpose, releaseinfo, remark, replaceable, returnvalue, revnumber, revremark, screen, secondary, secondaryie, see, seealso, seealsoie, seeie, seg, segtitle, seriesvolnums, shortaffil, simpara, state, street, subscript, subtitle, superscript, surname, symbol, synopsis, systemitem, tag, td, term, termdef, tertiary, tertiaryie, th, title, titleabbrev, tocentry, token, trademark, type, uri, userinput, varname, volumenum, wordasword, year.

The following elements occur in footnote: address, anchor, annotation, bibliolist, blockquote, bridgehead, calloutlist, caution, classsynopsis, cmdsynopsis, constraintdef, constructorsynopsis, destructorsynopsis, epigraph, equation, example, fieldsynopsis, figure, formalpara, funcsynopsis, glosslist, important, indexterm (db.indexterm.endofrange), indexterm (db.indexterm.singular), indexterm (db.indexterm.startofrange), informalequation, informalexample, informalfigure, informaltable (db.cals.informaltable), informaltable (db.html.informaltable), itemizedlist, literallayout, mediaobject, methodsynopsis, msgset, note, orderedlist, para, procedure, productionset, programlisting, programlistingco, qandaset, remark, revhistory, screen, screenco, screenshot, segmentedlist, sidebar, simpara, simplelist, synopsis, table (db.cals.table), table (db.html.table), task, tip, variablelist, warning.