WordPress Glossary Plugin (CMTG) - Use Case - How to Display Glossary Terms As Footnotes

Use Case – How to display glossary terms as footnotes

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Introduction

The WordPress Glossary plugin allows you to create a site with a complete glossary of terms. Each term's definition can appear on mouse hover across the whole site. It can also be displayed as footnotes. It means that some words/phrases in the post/page content will have a small link near them and the description at the end of the document.

Footnotes are often found in books and papers which use rare/old/specialist terms. They are a useful way to further explain these concepts in a later moment or to cite sources.

Use Case Front-End

Clicking on the footnote link scrolls down to the relevant term at the bottom of the page.

As it's set in plugin settings, by default only 3 terms are displayed. To see the full list of terms in the post, need to click the button Show more.

Clicking on the arrow next to the term brings the user back to the footnote in the post text.

Use Case Assumptions

In this example use case guide we will consider how to display glossary terms as footnotes on your WordPress site.

We consider that you have already bought the plugin, but not installed it yet. 

It follows:

• Installing the plugin
• Quick recap
• Enabling footnotes mode
• More appearance settings
• Using synonyms
• End result

Installing the Plugin

The process is the same for all CM plugins and add-ons.

• Download the plugin from your customer dashboard.
• Log in to WordPress and navigate to the WordPress Admin → Plugins settings.
• Click on Add New.
• Activate it and add the license.

Learn more: Getting Started - Installation And First Steps

Enabling Footnotes Mode

To enable the footnotes, navigate to Admin Dashboard → CM Tooltip Glossary → Settings → General Settings tab.

Scroll down to the section Footnotes display settings. There you can find the following options:

• Display terms as a footnotes - Enable it to highlight terms with footnote links that refer to the definition located on the bottom of the page under the main content. Important: If this option is enabled then tooltips will not be displayed.

  

• Display style - Choose the style how the reference link will be displayed on the Front-End. You can choose between:
  • Square brackets - [ ]

  • Curly brackets - { }

    

• Footnote link styles - Choose the styles for the link from where the term is found:
  • Font size - Choose the font size for the footnote link. The value should be set in pixels, example: "15px".
  • Color - Choose the font color for the footnote link.
  • Style - Choose the font style for the footnote link. The options are:
    • None
    • Bold

    • Italic

      

• Use excerpt for bottom definition - If enabled, then bottom footnote definition will display terms excerpt instead of full definition.

  You can add an excerpt to each term on the page of editing the term in the metabox Excerpt:

  

• Strip HTML from the bottom footnote definition - If enabled, then bottom footnote definition will have all of its HTML removed, leaving just the plain text.

  When the option is disabled:

  

  When the option is enabled:

  

• Footnotes definitions title - Choose the title for the footnote definitions section in the bottom block.

  

• Maximum displayed footnotes - Set the number of footnotes that will be displayed by default. To see the full list of the bottom footnotes that the article contains, the user will have to click the button Show more. Default value is "5".

• Footnotes definitions title - Here you can change the label of the button Show more.

  

Let's configure the options as it's shown on the screenshot below:

When you finish configuring the options, click the button Save Changes at the bottom of the page.

More Appearance Settings

A few more options that can affect the appearance of the terms are located under the tab Glossary Term.

Head to the section Glossary Term - Links. Here you can:

1. Define if to highlight a term as a link to the glossary term page and its behavior.
2. Define the colors and underline style for terms.

3. Define if to display icons for terms and their style.

   

Example

First Term Occurrence

One more useful option can be found in the General Settings tab, under the section Term highlighting. This is the option Highlight first term occurrence only - enable it if you don't want each term to be highlighted in the post every time it's found, but only the first time it appears.

And don't forget to click the button Save Changes after editing the settings.

Using Synonyms

If you use Synonyms for terms, then synonyms that are found in the same article before the base term will be written in brackets after the base term title. 

Example

Learn more about adding synonyms to terms in this guide: Terms - Adding Synonyms

Now let's see the result on the front-end.

End Result

Following instructions found in the plugin and guides you should be able to display glossary terms as footnotes on your WordPress site.

Use Case Front-End

Clicking on the footnote link scrolls down to the relevant term at the bottom of the page.

As it's set in plugin settings, by default only 3 terms are displayed. To see the full list of terms in the post, need to click the button Show more.

Clicking on the arrow next to the term brings the user back to the footnote in the post text.

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