How can I use \footnotemark with a \ref argument?

Question

I want to refer to an existing footnote and I'm not happy with the workaround given here: http://anthony.liekens.net/index.php/LaTeX/MultipleFootnoteReferences

I found that I can put a \label inside a footnote and then get the footnote-number by a \ref to this label. I'm not sure what would be the best way to reference to a footnote, but I would have formatted it like a normal footnote number (superscript). I tried to write \footnotemark[\ref{LabelName}], but that produces an error.

Can anybody help?

Is there any reason why I should not do it like that? (any risk of failure?)

\documentclass[11pt]{scrartcl}
\usepackage[ngerman]{babel}
\usepackage[latin1]{inputenc}

\usepackage[T1]{fontenc} 

\begin{document}

First footnote\footnote{\label{Firstfootnote}My first footnote}

Second footnote\footnote{Second Footnote}

Third footnote where I want to refer to first footnote\footnote{I now want to refer to the first footnote by \ref{Firstfootnote}, but I'd like to format it like \footnotemark[1], but footnotemark[ref{Firstfootnote}] produces an error}

\end{document}

--

(my) solution:

add \usepackage{refcount}

and use \footnotemark[\getrefnumber{Firstfootnote}]

Answer 1

the problem is getting a number out of a reference; this is what the refcount package does.

so, with the package loaded, use

\footnotemark[\getrefnumber{Firstfootnote}]

or whatever.

if your aim is to have multiple references to the same footnote, the fixfoot package may help. this allows you to define fixed footnotes as a single command.

so: \DeclareFixedFootnote{\prooflater}{This theorem will be proved later} allows you to say \prooflater wherever you like, and the footnote text will only appear once per page.

Answer 2

\footnotemark uses \textsuperscript internally, so I suggest to define a new macro (say, \fnref) that will typeset the reference given in its argument number as superscript.

\documentclass[11pt]{scrartcl}

\newcommand*{\fnref}[1]{\textsuperscript{\ref{#1}}}

\begin{document}

First footnote\footnote{\label{Firstfootnote}My first footnote}

Second footnote\footnote{Second Footnote}

Third footnote where I want to refer to first footnote\footnote{I now want to refer to the first footnote by \ref{Firstfootnote}, but I'd like to format it like \footnotemark[1], but footnotemark[ref{Firstfootnote}] produces an error, so I use \fnref{Firstfootnote}}

\end{document}