Template:Ref/doc

This documentation is for the ref, note, ref label and note label templates. The note templates place notes into an article, and the ref templates place labeled references to the notes, with the labels normally being clickable links for navigating from a ref to a corresponding note and back from the note to the ref. The label pair of templates are similar to the pair without the label name, but with more features.

The links and backlinks are identified internally by combining the specified parameters. The templates take a variable number of unnamed parameters identified by their position and, optionally, a named parameter named noid which, if used, should be set by specifying it as "noid=noid".

The first parameter of ref is a label that has to be used for the parameter of the corresponding note. The label is used to form the fragment identifier for the footnote link and back link. The second parameter of is the footnote reference marker, shown as a superscript. The easiest choice is to make these two the same, but this is not a requirement. If the second parameter is not supplied, the marker is a superscripted external link of the form [n].

Common parameters
Parameter 1 (id, mandatory): Forms HTML element identifiers for note and back links

Parameter 2 (label): Note label. Displayed by ref and ref label as a link in superior square brackets. If omitted from ref, a superior external link is produced instead, creating a unique number in square brackets. Mandatory for ref label. See below for note and note label.



Note parameter 3, note label parameter 4 (text, optional): Note text displayed after note label or back link label. Separated by a space in note but not (presumably originally unintended) in note label.

noid=noid (ref and ref label, optional): Suppresses HTML element identifier for back link. Only makes sense if another ref instance already uses the same identifier, because the back link in the corresponding note is mandatory.

Back links
In note, the optional note label is appended to a caret "^", which forms the back link.



In ref label and note label, parameter 3 (backlink, optional) is appended to the HTML element identifiers generated from parameter 1. If this back link parameter is specified, note label displays the back link in superscript instead of any note label. If the note text (parameter 4) is also specified to note label, the text may be attached to the back link wikilink, especially if when begins with a lower case letter.





If the back link (parameter 3) is omitted, the HTML element identifiers are compatible with the ref and note templates, note label displays the note label in superscript, and there is no wikilink for the text to stick to.





Parameter 3=none (specified literally): Superscript caret character "^" is used as back link label, displayed as if "3=^".





Multiple back links
The back link parameters are presumably to allow different back links using the same note label. The back links could be associated with the same note, similar to Wikipedia:Help:Footnotes.




 * Label 5.  Text → Label 5.   Text

Very simple example
{| class=wikitable !Article !Wikitext Text that requires a footnote.

Labels must be unique
A common error when using ref is to use it multiple times with the same label. For example:

Text that requires a footnote. Some other text that requires the same footnote.

Simple examples
ref and note

Example:  Article text more text more text.
 * Bulleted text
 * Bulleted text.
 * intervening text
 * Text for note a.
 * Text for note b.
 * Text for note a.
 * Text for note b.

This would produce: Article text more text more text.
 * Bulleted text
 * Bulleted text.
 * intervening text
 * Text for note a.
 * Text for note b.
 * Text for note a.
 * Text for note b.

Notice that the navigation back from the note to the ref does not work by clicking the backlink for refs which specify "noid=noid". In practice, if "noid=noid" is specified, it is usually specified for all refs having identical unnamed parameters, and navigation back to the associated ref is done by using the browser's "Back" button.

Also notice that browsers which support highlighting of link-accessed material highlight the active backlink by default, and that the highlighting has been extended to encompass the text for note c by specifying that text as a final template parameter instead of placing it outside of the template.

More complex examples
ref label pairs with note label. The note label template will normally have identical parameters with the ref label with which it is paired, and is normally created by copying the ref, pasting it into the note location, and changing its name to "note label"; this avoids having parameters mismatched because of a typo. Navigation forward uses parameters 1 and 3, navigation backward uses parameters 1 and 2. Parameter 3 is optional, and note label has an optional fourth parameter.

Example:  Article text more text more text more text  more text  more text  more text  more text.
 * intervening text
 * Text of note for ref a.
 * Text of note for ref b.
 * Text of note for ref c.
 * Text of note for ref d.
 * Text of note for ref e.
 * Text of note for ref f.
 * Text of note for ref e.
 * Text of note for ref f.

This would produce: Article text more text more text more text  more text  more text  more text  more text.
 * intervening text
 * Text of note for ref a.
 * Text of note for ref b.
 * Text of note for ref c.
 * Text of note for ref d.
 * Text of note for ref e.
 * Text of note for ref f.
 * Text of note for ref e.
 * Text of note for ref f.
 * 1) Note that ref label produces a superscripted link with square brackets.
 * 2) The note for ref e has a "^" character as its backlink, because parameter 3 was specified as "none".
 * 3) The notes for refs f and g do not have a clickable backlink, because parameter 3 was not specified.

Notice that, because the notes for refs g and h above use the same text, note h was made a part of the text passed as a final parameter to note g in order for the extended highlighting to cover both notes.

Table footnotes
One common application for ref and note templates is in placing footnotes below tables, as in the following example taken from the article:

To allow the preview,  is used. to form the needed list.

  Components may not sum to totals due to rounding  includes energy and construction  includes financial intermediation services indirectly measured 

Alternative referencing style
Using ref/note tags is not the only way to do footnotes. Some people prefer to use Cite.php. Cite.php has many advantages, but is not mandatory. You can use the Ref converter to replace ref/note tags with the newer Cite.php style. If you are interested in the discussion, please see the Footnotes talk page. For details of that system, please see Wikipedia:Help:Footnotes.

Combining Ref family templates with the alternative referencing style
An example combining the use of Ref-family templates with the alternative referencing style might be something like

 Yammer yammer yammer. Yammer yammer yammer. ...

Third party tool
A third-party tool to translate articles using the templates described on this page into the Cite.php system is available, see Ref converter.