Template:Format footnotes

Template documentation[view] [edit] [history] [purge]

When to use

This template indicates that the article uses many improperly formatted or non-formatted inline citations that require large-scale conversion to an accepted form of inline citation.

How to use

To add this template to an article, copy and paste:

{{Format footnotes|{{subst:DATE}}}}

or

{{Format footnotes|date=August 2025}}

Both options result in the same output.

This template will add the page to Category:Articles needing footnote reformatting and Category:Articles covered by WikiProject Wikify.
A bot will add the date for you at a later time if you forgot.

Examples

In-line reference using ref tags (correct)

A standard, correct way of formatting the following citations (with some acceptable variations as described at Wikipedia:Citing sources) would be:

Correct: Australia has a government.^[1]

References

^ Australian Government Press Agency (25 November 2009). "Australian Government". Retrieved 25 November 2009.

The following are examples of improperly formatted or non-formatted inline citations. This template is appropriate for articles that contain many such citations, therefore requiring large-scale conversion.

Embedded link (incorrect)

Incorrect: Australia has a government Australian Government.

or:

Incorrect: Australia has a government.[1]

Manual number (incorrect)

Incorrect: Australia has a government^{see footnote 1}

Inline parenthetical reference (incorrect)

Inline parenthetical referencing was a previously accepted citation system that is now deprecated per WP:PARREF. The recommendation is to convert inline parenthetical references to shortened footnotes (as depicted below) or regular footnotes (as depicted in the first example above) or footnotes with list-defined references.

Incorrect: Australia has a government (Australian Government Press Agency, 2009).

Correct: Australia has a government.^[1]

References

^ Davidson & Court 2011, p. 1.

Sources

Davidson, Hazel; Court, Dorothy (2011). Australian Government. Chapel Hill, Qld: Sugarbag on Damper. ISBN 9780975759387. OCLC 697121237.

Template parameters[Edit template data]
This template prefers inline formatting of parameters.
Parameter		Description	Type	Status
Affected area	`1`	Text to replace the word "article", usually "section" Example section	Line	optional
Reason	`reason`	A description of the issue, to add to the end of the text in the generated tag. Example Parenthetical citations should be converted to [[Help:Footnotes\|footnotes using reference tags]].	Line	optional
Month and year	`date`	Provides the month and year of the citation request; e.g., 'January 2013', but not 'jan13' Auto value `{{subst:CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}`	String	suggested

The above documentation is transcluded from Template:Format footnotes/doc.
Editors can experiment in this template's sandbox and testcases pages.
Add categories to the /doc subpage. Subpages of this template.

[1] Australian Government Press Agency (25 November 2009). "Australian Government". Retrieved 25 November 2009.

[FOOTNOTEDavidsonCourt20111-2] Davidson & Court 2011, p. 1.

[1]

[1]

v t e Citation and verifiability article maintenance templates
Sourcing	{{Circular}} {{Dubious}} {{Excessive citations}} {{Further reading cleanup}} {{Independent sources}} {{More citations needed}} {{More citations needed section}} {{More footnotes needed}} {{No footnotes}} {{No reliable sources}} {{No significant coverage}} {{One source}} {{One source section}} {{Only primary sources}} {{NRIS only}} {{Primary sources}} {{Primary sources section}} {{Religious text primary}} {{Self-published}} {{Self-reference cleanup}} {{Self-sourcing examples}} {{Refexample section}} {{Sources exist}} {{Text-source}} {{Unreferenced}} {{Unreferenced section}} {{Unreferenced category}} {{Unreliable sources}} {{Unreliable sources section}} {{User-generated}}
BLP-specific	{{BLP unreferenced}} {{BLP unreferenced section}} {{BLP primary sources}} {{BLP self-published}} {{BLP sources}} {{BLP sources section}} {{BLP IMDb-only refimprove}} {{BLP IMDb refimprove}} {{BLP no footnotes}} {{BLP more footnotes needed}} {{BLP one source}}
Topic specific	{{Localist}} {{Media IMDb refimprove}} {{More medical citations needed}} {{More science citations needed}} {{Neologism}} {{Science review}} {{Unreferenced law}} {{Unreferenced medical section}}
Dispute-related	{{Cite check}} {{Cite check section}} {{Content}} {{Disputed}} {{Dispute about}} {{Disputed section}} {{Disputed chem}} {{Disputed list}} {{Disputed map}} {{Expert needed}} {{Hoax}} {{Original research}} {{Original research section}} {{Speculation}} {{Speculation section}} {{Synthesis}} {{Verifiability}} {{Verify sources}}
Citation improvements	{{Citation style}} {{Citations broken}} {{Cleanup bare URLs}} {{Format footnotes}} {{Full citations needed}} {{Ibid}} {{Page numbers improve}} {{Page numbers needed}} {{Parenthetical referencing}} {{Shallow references}}
General advice	Citing sources Reliable sources Maintenance template removal Citation needed Find sources Combining sources Referencing styles