Footnotes in documents
Add numbered footnotes to any document. Type the syntax or pick Footnote from the slash menu, write the note in a small popup, and click the number any time to edit it. Footnotes with a source link open the source when clicked.
A footnote lets you hang a side note or a source off a sentence without cluttering it. In Eden documents a footnote shows as a small raised number in the text's own color, like in a printed book, and the notes themselves appear in a quiet list at the bottom of the document. Click a number to jump down to its note; click the note to edit it.
Adding a footnote
Two ways, same result.
- Slash menu. Type / in any document and pick Footnote (or type "/foot"). Eden drops the next free number at your cursor and opens a small popup. Type the note, press Enter, done.
- Type the syntax. Type
[^1]anywhere in a line. The moment you close the bracket it becomes a footnote chip and the same popup opens. Any short label works, not just numbers:[^source]is fine.
If you type a label that already exists in the document, the new chip reuses that footnote's text. That is how you cite the same note twice.
The footnotes list
Every document with footnotes gets a small list at the bottom, under a short divider line, like the foot of a printed page. It writes itself from the footnotes in your text, so it can never drift out of sync.
- Click a number in the text to jump down to its note.
- Click a note's number in the list to jump back up to the sentence that references it.
- Click the note's text to edit it. Source links open the source instead — hover the row and click the small pencil to edit those.
Editing or removing one
Click the note in the bottom list to open the editing popup. It also opens on its own the moment you create a new footnote.
- Enter saves. Every reference with the same label updates together.
- Escape closes without saving. If the footnote was brand new and still empty, Escape removes it.
- Saving an empty note removes the footnote.
- You can also delete the number in the text like any character, with Backspace.
Source citations
A footnote whose text contains a web link becomes a source citation: hovering shows the source name and the link, and clicking opens the source. To turn any footnote into one, edit it and paste the link into the text — Nature - https://nature.com/article gives it a source name, a bare link works too. Delete the link from the text and it goes back to being a plain note. Eve writes these when she cites sources in a document, and pasted markdown with footnote definitions works the same way.
How they save
Under the hood a document is markdown. Footnotes save in the standard format: the reference [^1] stays in the sentence, and the definitions are written as [^1]: your note lines at the bottom of the file. Exports, Eve, and anything else that reads the document see normal markdown footnotes.
Documents vs tables
Documents are for thinking. Tables are for tracking. Here is how to tell which one a piece of work needs, and how the two work together.
Proofreading in notes
Eden underlines spelling mistakes, grammar slips, and wordy phrases in your notes as you write, marks sentences that are hard to read with a small dot, and offers fixes and rephrases when you hover. Here's how it works, what it checks, and how to turn it off.
Version history
Eden snapshots every doc and board as you edit. Here's how version history works, how often a new version is captured, how to preview and restore one, and the guarantee that the latest snapshot is always kept.
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