- Active installs
- 2k+
- 40 ratings
- 4.6
- Last updated
- 2 months ago
- Version
- 3.2.2
- Tested up to
- WP 7.1.3
About this plugin
Footnotes Made Easy is a simple, but powerful, method of adding footnotes to your posts and pages.
Key features include…
- Simple footnote insertion via double parentheses
- Combine identical notes
- Solution for paginated posts
- Suppress Footnotes on specific page types
- Option to display ‘pretty’ tooltips using jQuery
- Lots of configuration options
- And much, much more!
Footnotes Made Easy is a fork of WP Footnotes, a plugin by Simon Elvery which was abandoned some years ago.
Please visit the Github page for the latest code development, planned enhancements and known issues.
Getting Started
Creating a footnote is incredibly simple – you just need to include your footnote in double parentheses, such as this…
This is a sentence ((and this is your footnote)).
The footnote will then appear at the bottom of your post/page.
Important note: Make sure you include a space before your opening double parentheses or the footnote won’t work!
Options
You have a fair few options on how the identifier links, footnotes and back-links look which can be found in the WordPress admin area under ‘Settings -> Footnotes’.
Paginated Posts
Some of you seem to like the paginating post, which is kind of problematic. By default, each page of your post will have its own set of footnotes at the bottom and the numbering will start again from 1 for each page.
The only way to get around this is to know how many posts are on each page and tell Footnotes Made Easy what number you want the list to start at for each of the pages. So at some point on each page (that is, between each <!--nextpage--> tag) you need to add a tag to let the plugin know what number the footnotes on this page should start at. The tag should look like this <!--startnum=5--> where “5” is the number you want the footnotes for this page to start at.
Referencing
Sometimes it’s useful to be able to refer to a previous footnote a second (or third, or fourth…) time. To do this, you can either simply insert the exact same text as you did the first time and the identifier should simply reference the previous note. Alternatively, if you don’t want to do all that typing again, you can construct a footnote like this: ((ref:1)) and the identifier will reference the footnote with the given number.
Even though it’s a little more typing, using the exact text method is much more robust. The number referencing will not work across multiple pages in a paged post (but will work within the page). Also, if you use the number referencing system you risk them identifying the incorrect footnote if you go back and insert a new footnote and forget to change the referenced number.
Available in 8 Languages
Footnotes Made Easy is fully internationalized, and ready for translations.
Many thanks to the following translators for their contributions:
- David Artiss, English (UK)
- Mark Robson, English (UK)
- Annabelle W, English (UK)
- maboroshin, Japanese
- Laurent MILLET, French (France)
- B. Cansmile Cha, Korean
- danbilabs, Korean
- denelan, Dutch
- Peter Smits, Dutch
- Pieterjan Deneys, Dutch (Belgium)
- Alex Grey, Russian
If you would like to add a translation to this plugin then please head to our Translating WordPress page
Screenshots
Analytics
Live from WordPress.org, refreshed daily. Last refresh Oct 18, 2026.
- Downloads on a typical day are down 24% on the month before.
- Passes 3 of 4 health checks below.
Health checks
What a careful site owner looks at before installing.
- Actively maintained Last release 2 months ago
- Tested with current WordPress Tested up to 7.1.3
- Support questions answered 0 of 2 resolved in two months
- Well rated 4.6 stars from 40 ratings
- Latest week
- 139
- Typical week
- 130
- Peak
- 1,980 Week of Nov 2, 2025
View as table
| Week | Downloads |
|---|---|
| Week of Oct 11 | 139 |
| Week of Oct 4 | 157 |
| Week of Sep 27 | 150 |
| Week of Sep 20 | 157 |
| Week of Sep 13 | 179 |
| Week of Sep 6 | 171 |
| Week of Aug 30 | 226 |
| Week of Aug 23 | 304 |
| Week of Aug 16 | 453 |
| Week of Aug 9 | 1,621 |
| Week of Aug 2 | 147 |
| Week of Jul 26 | 168 |
| Week of Jul 19 | 204 |
| Week of Jul 12 | 196 |
| Week of Jul 5 | 315 |
| Week of Jun 28 | 295 |
| Week of Jun 21 | 1,554 |
| Week of Jun 14 | 498 |
| Week of Jun 7 | 1,349 |
| Week of May 31 | 80 |
| Week of May 24 | 78 |
| Week of May 17 | 64 |
| Week of May 10 | 75 |
| Week of May 3 | 114 |
| Week of Apr 26 | 70 |
| Week of Apr 19 | 76 |
| Week of Apr 12 | 76 |
| Week of Apr 5 | 71 |
| Week of Mar 29 | 82 |
| Week of Mar 22 | 76 |
| Week of Mar 15 | 89 |
| Week of Mar 8 | 121 |
| Week of Mar 1 | 74 |
| Week of Feb 22 | 82 |
| Week of Feb 15 | 63 |
| Week of Feb 8 | 79 |
| Week of Feb 1 | 97 |
| Week of Jan 25 | 84 |
| Week of Jan 18 | 93 |
| Week of Jan 11 | 88 |
| Week of Jan 4 | 81 |
| Week of Dec 28, 2025 | 75 |
| Week of Dec 21, 2025 | 87 |
| Week of Dec 14, 2025 | 139 |
| Week of Dec 7, 2025 | 257 |
| Week of Nov 30, 2025 | 1,219 |
| Week of Nov 23, 2025 | 619 |
| Week of Nov 16, 2025 | 219 |
| Week of Nov 9, 2025 | 1,216 |
| Week of Nov 2, 2025 | 1,980 |
| Week of Oct 26, 2025 | 75 |
| Week of Oct 19, 2025 | 95 |
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