Include footnotes in copy-cut-paste and "extract from selection" actions

Feature requests
,
1

Use case or problem

Footnotes are not included in copy-cut-paste actions or “extract from selection” actions, which means they get abandoned and left behind fairly often. This means working with footnotes can be quite cumbersome, especially when you need your content to remain mobile in case of major rearrangements. If this is added it will dramatically simplify extraction, merging, cutting, and copying actions that include content with footnotes which will remove a huge barrier to including footnotes as part of regular workflows. This applies especially to academic writing, TTRPGs, and any other form of notes that make use of footnotes, citations, and endnotes (e.g. Wiki articles).

Proposed solution

When you copy text with a footnote link, it copies the footnote too. On paste, it offers to paste the footnote and can remember your choice or ask every time. When you cut text with a footnote, it offers to cut the footnote and likewise offers to remember your decision.

Current workaround

Only use in-line footnotes so that they are including when cutting or copying. This does not work for citations that are used multiple times, meaning academic or reference heavy writing does not work for this.

Related feature requests

Found this plugin request, which is a bit different from what I am suggesting, this post, and this feature request. This FR is part of a series; original post was this reddit thread and I was asked to post each item as a FR to the forum by sigrunixia.

3

Steps to reproduce

I have a note with two headings, where there is a footnote on some text in the first heading. The actual text of the footnote is at the bottom of the file. I then click “extract this heading” on the first heading in the file.

Expected result

I’d expect the footnotes to come with the body of the heading

Actual result

The footnotes are left in the original file.

Environment

  • Operating system: Windows
  • Debug info: None

Additional information

4

Related: this should probably also apply to reference-style Markdown links.

5

Yes, please! :blush:

Ideally (for me at least) the footnote should be removed from the original note if the only use was extracted.

6

I was confused for weeks about why the footnotes in my Obsidian vault kept breaking. I finally figured out the culprit: using the “Note composer: Extract this heading…”-feature breaks the footnote links during extraction. I try to remind myself to fix them manually afterward, but I still forget occasionally. It would be a nice timesaver if Note Composer updated and preserved footnote links automatically!