Tabularray with footnotes

Question

I'm almost done switching to tabularray but have just one final problem to solve.

Using \footnote inside tblr doesn't work properly, but it's a known problem with most (all?) table-like environments. After a bit of research, I tried this:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tabularray}
\usepackage{footnote}
\makesavenoteenv{tblr}
\UseTblrLibrary{counter}
\begin{document}
\begin{tblr}{colspec={ll}}
a line & a text\footnote{with a note} in the middle\
another line & another text\footnote{with another note} in the middle
\end{tblr}
\end{document}

Thanks to \UseTblrLibrary{counter}, the footnotes are numbered correctly inside the table, but the footnotes themselves are badly handled and appear multiple times:

Second try, I used \TblrNote provided by tabularray:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tabularray}
\begin{document}
\begin{longtblr}[
    note{1}={with a note},
    note{2}={with another note}
]{colspec={ll}}
a line & a text\TblrNote{1} in the middle\
another line & another text\TblrNote{2} in the middle
\end{longtblr}
\end{document}

which yields this:

But this solution isn't satisfactory for several reasons:

• The footnote numbers in the table don't handle spaces after them correctly, as shown in the picture above.
• I'd have to number footnotes manually, which is a big no-no in LaTeX.
• The footnotes themselves aren't rendered like normal footnotes: wrong font size, no horizontal rule above them, and their numbers ignore previously existing footnotes on other pages.

Is there a clean way to get real footnotes with tabularray? Thanks for your attention.

Answer 1

You don't need to update your documents or TeX distribution if your documents work well. In fact, most of my documents are still using traditional tabular environment, compiled on a 10 year old MiKTeX distribution. :-)

---

Anyway, here is a possible solution. With the newly added functional library you can split each footnote into \footnotemark and \footnotetext, then add footnote text after the table with some hook. Maybe it is not perfect, but at least it works.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[a6paper]{geometry}
\usepackage{tabularray}
\UseTblrLibrary{counter}
\UseTblrLibrary{functional}
\makeatletter
\IgnoreSpacesOn
\tlNew \gFootNoteTl
\intNew \gFootNoteInt
\prgNewFunction \footNote {m}
  {
    \tlPutRight \gFootNoteTl
      {
        \stepcounter{footnote}
        \footnotetext{#1}
      }
    \prgReturn {\footnotemark{}}
  }
\AddToHook{env/tblr/before}{
  \intSetEq \gFootNoteInt \c@footnote
  \tlClear \gFootNoteTl
}
\AddToHook{env/tblr/after}{
  \intSetEq \c@footnote \gFootNoteInt
  \tlUse \gFootNoteTl
}
\IgnoreSpacesOff
\makeatother
\begin{document}
Some note\footnote{some note} before.
\bigskip
\begin{tblr}[evaluate=\footNote]{colspec={ll},hlines}
a line & a text\footNote{with a note} in the middle\
another line & another text\footNote{with another note} in the middle
\end{tblr}
\bigskip
\begin{tblr}[evaluate=\footNote]{colspec={ll},hlines}
a line & a text\footNote{with a note} in the middle\
another line & another text\footNote{with another note} in the middle
\end{tblr}
\bigskip
Another note\footnote{another note} after.
\end{document}

Answer 2

I want to add another answer to make some explanations of the table notes in talltblr or longtblr in tabularray package.

The \TblrNote command is similar to \tnote in threeparttable package and \tnotex in threeparttablex package. Table notes are different from footnotes. They are put after the tables. So it is better not to mix them with footnotes. Many users choose to use alphabet values (a,b,c,...) as note marks.

You need to specify the note mark in \TblrNote command, but there is an advantage that you can give the same note mark in different \TblrNote (see the example below). Some users think this is useful.

Also by default \TblrNote command \rlap the note mark (It is also the default setup of \tnote and \tnotex commands in threeparttable and \threeparttablex packages). One of the reasons is that it makes siunitx numbers align well (see the example below).

You can change the default setting by redefine \TblrOverlap command.

\renewcommand\TblrOverlap[1]{#1}

The above code line removes the default \rlap setting.

---

Now here is a complete example showing the usages of \TblrNote command:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tabularray}
\UseTblrLibrary{booktabs,siunitx}
\begin{document}
\begin{talltblr}[
  caption = {First Table},
  note{a} = {with a note},
  note{b} = {with another note}
]{
  colspec = {S[table-format=3.2]S[table-format=3.2]},
  row{1} = {guard}
}
\toprule
  Some Head Text     & Some Head Text     \
\midrule
  111.22             & 111.22\TblrNote{a} \
  222.33\TblrNote{b} & 222.33             \
  333.44             & 333.44\TblrNote{b} \
\bottomrule
\end{talltblr}
\vspace{2em}
\renewcommand\TblrOverlap[1]{#1}
\begin{talltblr}[
  caption = {Second Table},
  note{a} = {with a note},
  note{b} = {with another note}
]{colspec={ll}}
\hline
a line & a text\TblrNote{a} in the middle             \
another line & another text\TblrNote{b} in the middle \
\hline
\end{talltblr}
\end{document}

Answer 3

This is just a tiny modification of the L.J.R. answer, that works with longtblr, i.e.:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{geometry}
\usepackage{tabularray}
\UseTblrLibrary{counter}
\UseTblrLibrary{functional}
\makeatletter
\IgnoreSpacesOn
\tlNew \gFootNoteTl
\intNew \gFootNoteInt
\prgNewFunction \footNote {m}
  {
    \tlPutRight \gFootNoteTl
      {
        \stepcounter{footnote}
        \footnotetext{#1}
      }
    \prgReturn {\footnotemark{}}
  }
\AddToHook{env/longtblr/before}{
  \intSetEq \gFootNoteInt \c@footnote
  \tlClear \gFootNoteTl
}
\AddToHook{env/longtblr/after}{
  \intSetEq \c@footnote \gFootNoteInt
  \tlUse \gFootNoteTl
}
\IgnoreSpacesOff
\makeatother
\begin{document}
Some note\footnote{some note} before.
\bigskip
\begin{longtblr}[evaluate=\footNote]{colspec={ll},hlines}
a line & a text\footNote{with a note} in the middle\
another line & another text\footNote{with another note} in the middle
\end{longtblr}
\bigskip
Another note\footnote{another note} after.
\end{document}