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Footnotes and references in Paper docs

Footnotes and references in Paper docs

leonardoc
Helpful | Level 6

Please give us the possibility to place footnotes and references!

 

Latest Update
Walter
Dropbox Staff
This idea has been closed as it has reached the end of the Share an Idea process.
Status changed to: Closed
26 Comments
lukeyo
Super User

Hi @leonardoc that's an interesting and useful feature idea!

There's probably a few ways to do this - do you have any examples/recommendations of best practice for this?

Luke

leonardoc
Helpful | Level 6

Hi @lukeyo 

Since I believe that Dropbox Papers runs on a Markdown engine, the minimum level would be to implement the Markdown way to specify footnotes, that is with a [^ref1] code that points to a text (or also a web link) in the footnote:

Here's a simple footnote,[^1] and here's a longer one.[^bignote]

[^1]: This is the first footnote.

[^bignote]: Here's one with multiple paragraphs and code.

The second step - which all scientists/academics would love* - would be to be able to insert a footnote/reference from PubMed or biorXiv and to give the possibility of having all the references at the end of the text, rather than in footnotes. (Actually, since Paper is web-based, footnotes and references would probably appear in the same way.) 

But if you really want to make it wonderful, in addition to this it would be great to have formatting for the references according to the styles of the journals.

A great example of a web-based system for automatically placing references in an online document is the integration between Google Docs and Paperpile.

* disclaimer: I am one of them...

lukeyo
Super User

Thank you, that is a great expansion of your suggestion! I hadn't heard of paperpile before, looks like a great product.

From what I've seen of integrations, Paper is more targeted to designers and other creative types, so I'm not sure if this will get made. But the best way to make it so is if enough people vote on your idea and then the DB team takes it up.

All the best

Luke

leonardoc
Helpful | Level 6

Hi @lukeyo 

I imagined that it was more targeted to designers, but you cannot imagine (or maybe you can) how great it is to use Papers for collaborative scientific reports! Much better than anything else I have tried! 

Besides, footnotes is something that every document might need - even a web page - so I really hope somebody will consider it.

Paperpile is the most versatile reference manager for Google Docs that I know. It allows you to just focus on writing, without having to click here and there or even have another program open (I am in no way affiliated with either of them)

leonardo

Jay
Dropbox Staff
This idea is going to need a bit more support. We've updated the status to encourage more users to back you up!
Jay
Dropbox Staff
 
Status changed to: Gathering Support
mm4k
New member | Level 2

I'd like this also for writing blog posts 🙂

TheCandiceP
New member | Level 2

GREAT IDEA

Julien B.12
Helpful | Level 6

A support for markdown footnotes would be great. A connector with Zotero would be even better, for academia!

riccardoch
New member | Level 2

Footnotes would be great!
Like leonardoc said you could implement them using the standard markdown syntax.

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89 votes received Status: Closed