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I have a footnote that begins on one page but the text runs over onto the footnote section of the page afterwards. Any way to fix this? I'm using footmisc and the oneside book class.

Mico
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JMS
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    Welcome to TeX.sx! Could you please post a minimal working example (MWE) that demonstrates the behaviour? This will save people the work of having to create an example themselves. – Jake Oct 21 '11 at 04:13
  • I can't really, since changing the text changes the footnote placement and I don't want to publish any part of my thesis. The footnote begins on the page where it is placed, runs for one line, stops midsentence, and is resumed on the next page in the footnote section. – JMS Oct 21 '11 at 04:16
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    You can use the lipsum package, which allows you to insert blind text. Using the command \lipsum you get about one page of blind text, using \lipsum[1-3] you get the first three paragraphs of the same text. That should enable you to build an MWE. – Jake Oct 21 '11 at 04:18

4 Answers4

87

The TeX FAQ has some information on this.

The easiest (and most brutal) thing they suggest is setting \interfootnotelinepenalty=10000, which will prevent the footnote from breaking across pages.

Alternatively, they suggest adjusting the space on the page (using \enlargethispage{<length>}), to force the line with the footnote onto the next page.

And here's an example what an MWE could look like, which makes it possible to try out different solutions:

\documentclass[oneside]{book}
\usepackage{lipsum}
% \usepackage[splitrule]{footmisc} %% The splitrule option draws a full width rule above the continued part of the footnote as a visual cue to readers.

% \interfootnotelinepenalty=10000 %% Completely prevent breaking of footnotes


\begin{document}
\lipsum[1-3]
\lipsum[1]
New paragraph, which is really long, so long in fact that it spans more than one line. New paragraph, which is really long, so long in fact that it spans more than one line.
\footnote{Here's a really long footnote that will probably be longer than one line, which could help to show the problematic behaviour.} % \enlargethispage{-\baselineskip} %% move one line (and the footnote) onto the next page
\lipsum
\end{document}
Mico
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Jake
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    I don't see how I would ever want a footnote to break across pages, so setting \interfootnotelinepenalty=\@M works for me. – Matej Sep 23 '14 at 15:24
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    Instead of just using \enlagethispage the addlines package can be useful, especially for double-sided documents, because this "will also add [positive or negative] space to the fac­ing page in a two-sided doc­u­ment"! – Stephen Sep 01 '15 at 17:56
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    Your description "adjusting the space on the page (using \enlargethispage{<length>}), to force the line with the footnote onto the next page" implies that footnotes spill content over to the next page only when the footnote belongs to the final line of a page. That's far from always being the case (in my experience, it's rarely the case). I have a document here where the footnote belongs to the first line on the page, yet the footnote spills over to the next page. What's worse, 98% of the footnote remains on the first page, and the only thing that spills over are two short numbers .. :( – Sverre Sep 03 '15 at 15:29
  • Ditto to @Matej Excuse the long-delayed comment, but I was just now googling this problem, and it coughed up your answer. \interfootnotelinepenalty=10000 worked immediately and perfectly for me, too (just cut-and-pasted it; didn't even have to type it:) Any particular reason why it's "brutal"? – John Forkosh Jun 08 '20 at 04:17
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    @Matej I thought that I would never want a footnote to break across pages, until I saw the footnote being moved to the next page leaving a giant white-space gap on the previous one... – Hugh Perkins Apr 13 '21 at 02:09
  • \interfootnotelinepenalty=10000 breaks \tablefootnote for me :-( – Adam Spiers May 24 '21 at 16:34
  • I already have \interfootnotelinepenalty=10000 but it is still breaking a footnote (after an equation in the footnote). Any idea what is going on and what I could do to prevent this? – Marten Oct 22 '21 at 09:32
  • Strangely only a number above 1000000000 seems to do the trick, but it also gives the error Number is too big. – Marten Oct 22 '21 at 09:37
  • @Jake But is there a way to automatically detect and prevent footnotemarks on the last line, at least the ones that would force a footnote split? – Vincent Krebs Jan 29 '23 at 03:08
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Since you're already using the footmisc package, you may want to load it with the option splitrule. Doing so will place a full-linelength line ("rule" in typographic jargon) above the split-off part of a footnote that's split across two pages. This is a frequently-used solution in the publishing industry to indicate to readers that the footnote material at the bottom of a page is a continuation of something that was started on the preceding page.

More information on the subject of split footnotes and how to best deal with them is available at Why does LaTeX split footnotes across pages? from the TeX FAQ list (formerly known as the "UK TeX FAQ list).

Mico
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    Elegant! I've added that approach to the example in my answer. – Jake Oct 21 '11 at 04:38
  • would be a nice read if the link wouldnt be dead by now... – der bender Jul 06 '20 at 14:10
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    @derbender - Updated the link. You could have found it too, in 3 seconds or less, simply by googling "UK TeX FAQ LaTeX split footnote". I guess you get more utility out of being snarky and polemical than out of being helpful and constructive. Keep it up -- you'll go far. – Mico Jul 06 '20 at 16:59
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To find broken footnotes (first step before fixing, if it isn't done globally), you can use the fnbreak package.

Stephen
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-1

One approach is to adjust the margins of the document layout, so that the footnote fits on the same page. This can be done for either the entire document, with the command

\usepackage[margin=0.9in]{geometry}

or be done for a given scope of the document,

\newgeometry{includefoot,left=2cm,right=2cm,bottom=1cm,top=2cm}
% content of the page where the footnote occurs
\restoregeometry

Issue with the latter solution is that a new blank page is created when the command \newgeometryis used, and in general the command affects the entire page layout. In order to limit the scope to a certain part of the page, the following answer on this post

newgeometry makes content run to next page

can instead be used. The adjustwidth command temporarily changes the text area width.

Community
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imranal
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