Contact Us

Exhibition Tutorials How to create an exhibit

The Footnotes Block


Cheatsheet:

Insert a footnote number: highlight the text before the footnote link and click the footnote button

Italics: wrap text in underscores like _this_ (becomes this)

Links: wrap the text you want to link in square brackets, followed the URL in round brackets. So [this](https://exhibits.library.uvic.ca/spotlight/tutorials/feature/the-footnotes-block) becomes this.


We've customized Spotlight to create simple, Wikipedia-style footnotes. You can now insert footnote numbers into text on feature pages. Clicking a footnote number takes the user to the footnotes block at the bottom of the page. At the end of each footnote is a "back" link that takes them back to the main body text so they can pick up reading where they left off.

Inserting Footnote Numbers

Highlight the text after which you want to insert the footnote number. The format bar will pop up over your selection. Click on the footnote button at the end of the format bar (i.e. the right-most icon). Spotlight will prompt you for the footnote number and then automatically create the link to the corresponding footnote at the bottom of the page.1

You can insert footnote numbers in any text block or blocks that include optional text (such as the Item Embed or Uploaded Item Row blocks). You can also insert footnote numbers into Quote blocks.2

footnote.PNG
footnotes_ex_1.PNG
footnotes_ex_2.PNG

The Footnotes Block

footnotes_icon.PNG

To insert a Footnotes block, add it to the bottom of the page as you would any other block. Unfortunately, the format bar, which usually appears when you select text with your cursor, doesn't work with the Footnotes block.

footnotes_title.PNG

Text Formatting: Links and Italics

Because Spotlight's built-in text formatting bar doesn't work with the Footnotes block, there are a couple workarounds for creating links and italics:

For links, place the text you want to link in square brackets [ ], followed by the URL in round brackets ( ). See the following example, which shows how the text is entered in the footnotes block (top) and how it displays after being saved (bottom).

footnotes_link_before.PNG
footnotes_link_after.PNG

To italicize text, place it between two underscores (_). See the following example, which shows how the text is entered in the footnotes block (top) and how it displays after being saved (bottom).

footnotes_italics_before.PNG
footnotes_italics_after.PNG

  1. This is some example footnote text. Do not try and bend the spoon. That's impossible. Instead... only try to realize the truth. What truth? There is no spoon. There is no spoon? Then you'll see, that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself. Back ↑
  2. This is an example of a multi-paragraph footnote. I know you're out there. I can feel you now. I know that you're afraid... you're afraid of us. You're afraid of change. I don't know the future. I didn't come here to tell you how this is going to end. I came here to tell you how it's going to begin.

    I'm going to hang up this phone, and then I'm going to show these people what you don't want them to see. I'm going to show them a world without you. A world without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries. A world where anything is possible. Where we go from there is a choice I leave to you. Back ↑
< Building Pages (add images, text, movies, etc.) About pages >