how to make a footnote in ao3

I saw irrationalpie made a similar guide and wanted to link it since it had
- a more thorough explanation of the HTML
- a really cool spreadsheet for copy-pasting
- and also their tagging system also works better for multi-chapter fics cause some people like to read the whole thing at once

(See the end of the work for more notes and other works inspired by this one.)

Work Text:

^{Anything in bold would be your text}

What it looks like:

blah blah ¹ blah blah

1. blah blah return to text

^HTML:

^{blah blah<a id="1back" href="#1" rel="nofollow" name="1back"></a><a id="1back" href="#1" rel="nofollow" name="1back">1</a> blah blah}

<a name="1" rel="nofollow" id="1"></a>1. blah blah <a href="#1back" rel="nofollow">return to text</a>

^{Sidenote you could technically use whatever character you wanted (in place of numbers) but if you use more than one footnote be sure to use different symbols:}

What it looks like:

blah blah^*blah blah ^**

* blah blah return to text

** blah blah return to text

^HTML:

^{blah blah <a id="*back" href="#*" rel="nofollow" name="*back"></a><a id="*back" href="#*" rel="nofollow" name="*back">*</a> blah blah <a id="**back" href="**" rel="nofollow" name="**back"></a><a id="**back" href="#**" rel="nofollow" name="**back">**</a>}

<a name="*" rel="nofollow" id="*"></a>* blah blah <a href="#*back" rel="nofollow">return to text</a>

<a name="**" rel="nofollow" id="**"></a>** blah blah <a href="#**back" rel="nofollow">return to text</a>

^{I can not stress this enough If you're doing more than one footnote be sure to change the number from 1 to whatever.}

What it looks like:

blah blah¹ blah blah²

^{1. blah blah return to text}

^{2. blah blah return to text}

^HTML:

^{blah blah <a id="1back" href="#1" rel="nofollow" name="1back"></a><a id="1back" href="#1" rel="nofollow" name="1back">1</a> blah blah <a id="2back" href="#2" rel="nofollow" name="2back"></a><a id="2back" href="#2" rel="nofollow" name="2back">2</a>}

<a name="1" rel="nofollow" id="1"></a>1. blah blah <a href="#1back" rel="nofollow">return to text</a>

<a name="2" rel="nofollow" id="2"></a>2. blah blah <a href="#2back" rel="nofollow">return to text</a>

The will make the footnote subscript, if the text after your footnote is also in subscript then you need to make sure the after the HTML has a / (ex: into )

^{Note: the HTML will look intimidating, don't fret, all is well, just read it carefully and be sure to preview your work before posting}

^{Another note: if you have bold or italics in your text that will add more HTML in there so be prepared for that}

Notes:

I've typed it so many times today that the word 'footnote' doesn't look real anymore
btw feel free to link anything you write, you can never read too many fanfics in my opinion and maybe yall will get me into some new fandoms

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