From 6b7ac10f49c31d438cf76650baa43f6c11338353 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: RavSinghChandan <ravchandan15@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 30 Oct 2026 22:15:37 +0530
Subject: [PATCH 1/2] Don't add an empty footnotes block when no footnote is
 referenced

---
 lib/markdown2.py                          | 3 ++-
 test/tm-cases/footnotes_unreferenced.opts | 1 +
 test/tm-cases/footnotes_unreferenced.text | 3 +++
 3 files changed, 6 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
 create mode 100644 test/tm-cases/footnotes_unreferenced.opts
 create mode 100644 test/tm-cases/footnotes_unreferenced.text

diff --git a/lib/markdown2.py b/lib/markdown2.py
index 3632a54e..346a6345 100755
--- a/lib/markdown2.py
+++ b/lib/markdown2.py
@@ -2280,7 +2280,8 @@ def _form_paragraphs(self, text: str) -> str:
         return "\n\n".join(grafs)
 
     def _add_footnotes(self, text: str) -> str:
-        if self.footnotes:
+        # Only referenced footnotes are listed, so there is nothing to add without any reference
+        if self.footnote_ids:
             footer = [
                 '<div class="footnotes">',
                 '<hr' + self.empty_element_suffix,
diff --git a/test/tm-cases/footnotes_unreferenced.opts b/test/tm-cases/footnotes_unreferenced.opts
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..9dfee9e2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/test/tm-cases/footnotes_unreferenced.opts
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+{"extras": ["footnotes"]}
diff --git a/test/tm-cases/footnotes_unreferenced.text b/test/tm-cases/footnotes_unreferenced.text
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..ae7962e9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/test/tm-cases/footnotes_unreferenced.text
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+This paragraph has no footnote marker.
+
+[^1]: A footnote that is never referenced.

From 89bdd83fb501235598a74119c16b2f5de1119800 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: RavSinghChandan <ravchandan15@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 31 Oct 2026 07:04:28 +0530
Subject: [PATCH 2/2] Add a changelog entry

---
 CHANGES.md | 1 +
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)

diff --git a/CHANGES.md b/CHANGES.md
index cee783ed..b37edbf6 100644
--- a/CHANGES.md
+++ b/CHANGES.md
@@ -2,6 +2,7 @@
 
 ## python-markdown2 2.5.6 (not yet released)
 
+- [pull #758] Fix `footnotes` extra adding an empty footnotes block when no footnote is referenced.
 - [pull #746] Preserve query strings and fragments in `markdown-file-links` conversions, including reference-link targets.
 - [pull #739] Fix `header-ids` extra putting sanitized HTML into header ids in safe mode, which allowed attribute injection (#649)
 - [pull #732] Fix excessive CPU use in the inline HTML tokenizer on repeated unclosed tag fragments (#707)