Absolutely! You can pull this off with Pandoc when exporting to Word—no need to stick to LaTeX. The trick is combining a CSL style for numeric reference superscripts with a Lua filter to force footnotes to use alphabetic markers. Here's a step-by-step breakdown:

1. Set up numeric reference superscripts #

First, ensure your in-text citations render as numeric superscripts. Use Pandoc's --citeproc flag alongside a numeric CSL style (common options like IEEE or the numeric variant of APA work perfectly). Your markdown citations stay in the [@foobar] format; Pandoc will convert them to superscript numbers when processing with the right CSL.

2. Use a Lua filter to override footnote numbering #

By default, Pandoc generates numeric footnotes for Word. To swap these for letters, create a simple Lua filter (save it as footnote-letters.lua):

-- Map footnote numbers to alphabetic markers (supports infinite letters: a, b, ..., z, aa, ab, etc.)
function number_to_letters(num)
  local letters = ""
  while num > 0 do
    local remainder = (num - 1) % 26
    -- Use lowercase letters (replace 97 with 65 for uppercase)
    letters = string.char(97 + remainder) .. letters
    num = math.floor((num - 1) / 26)
  end
  return letters
end

function Note(note)
  note.number = number_to_letters(note.number)
  return note
end

This filter takes each footnote's numeric index and converts it to a corresponding alphabetic string (e.g., 1 → "a", 27 → "aa").

3. Run the Pandoc command #

Combine everything into one command to generate your Word document:

pandoc your-document.md --citeproc --csl=ieee.csl --lua-filter=footnote-letters.lua -o your-output.docx

Bonus: Verify in Word #

When you open the output DOCX, you’ll see:

• In-text references as superscript numbers (e.g.,¹)
• Footnote markers as superscript letters (e.g.,ᵃ)

This keeps your references and footnotes visually distinct, exactly what you need.

内容的提问来源于stack exchange，提问作者January