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.

What is the Footnote Extractor & Linker?

Finds inline citation markers and their matching footnote definitions in LLM output, pairs them, and produces a clean numbered reference list. Flags any markers without a footnote and any footnotes never referenced. It runs free in your browser on Gera Tools, with nothing uploaded.

Footnote Extractor & Linker

Name: Footnote Extractor & Linker
Creator: Gera Tools
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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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.

When to use it

Paste in any LLM-generated text that includes inline citation markers and a footnote block at the end. The tool is especially useful when:

You asked an AI assistant to write a research summary with citations and want to confirm the sources it listed are real and correctly referenced.
You are reviewing AI-generated content before publication and need to catch hallucinated or missing footnotes quickly.
You are cleaning up an export from a text-based AI tool where footnote formatting may have been mangled.

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

The pairing is number-based: marker [2] is matched to whichever footnote definition carries the number 2, regardless of line order or formatting style. If a number appears multiple times in the body (the same source cited in three places), that is handled correctly — one footnote definition is still reported once.

Understanding the output

The tool produces three things:

Paired reference list — each footnote number linked to its definition, in order.
Dangling markers — inline markers in the body that have no matching footnote definition. This usually means the model invented a citation number but forgot to write the source.
Orphan footnotes — definitions in the footnote block that are never cited in the body. Common when an earlier draft is edited and a citation is removed from the text but the footnote entry is left behind.

Practical workflow

Paste the full LLM output (prose and footnotes together).
Review the paired list — does each source look real and relevant?
Fix any dangling markers by researching and adding the missing source.
Remove or reassign orphan footnotes.
Paste the clean reference list into the AI Citation Formatter to render it in APA, MLA, or Chicago style.

The tool reads your text; it does not change it. All processing runs in your browser.