What footnote formats does it recognise?

Bracketed numeric markers like [1] in the body, and footnote definitions written as `[1] source text`, `1. source text`, or `[^1]: source text` at the end. It pairs each body marker with the definition that shares its number.

What does it flag as a problem?

Two things — an inline marker like [3] with no matching footnote definition (a dangling reference), and a footnote definition that no marker in the body ever points to (an orphan footnote). Both are common in LLM output.

Does it change my main text?

No. It reads the text and produces a separate paired reference list and warnings. Your original prose is left untouched so you stay in control of edits.

How is this different from the citation formatter?

This tool finds and pairs the markers with their footnotes that already exist in a block of text. The citation formatter takes a clean list of sources and renders them in APA, MLA, or Chicago style. Use this first, then format the extracted sources.

Can it handle markers that appear more than once?

Yes. A marker like [2] cited in three places still maps to the single footnote 2, and that footnote is reported as referenced. The reference list lists each unique footnote once.

Footnote Extractor & Linker

Pair markers with their footnotes

LLMs sprinkle citation markers — [1], [2] — through a paragraph and then dump the footnote definitions at the bottom. Verifying that every marker has a source, and that every source is actually used, is tedious by hand. This tool extracts and pairs them, builds a clean numbered reference list, and flags anything dangling.

How it works

The extractor scans the body for inline markers ([n]) and the tail for footnote definitions ([n] text, n. text, or [^n]: text). It groups them by number, pairs each marker with its definition, and then runs two consistency checks:

body:   ...as shown [1] and again [2].
notes:  [1] Smith 2024
        [2] Jones 2023
        [3] Lee 2022   <-- orphan, never cited

Tips and notes

A marker with no footnote is a dangling reference — usually the model forgot to write the source. A footnote nothing points to is an orphan — often a leftover from an edit. Both are surfaced as warnings. Once you have the clean source list, paste it into the AI Citation Formatter to render it in APA, MLA, or Chicago style.