9

I am writing a long report and want to use symbols in footnotes instead of numbers.

When I add the 10th footnote the error "counter too large" occurs

\documentclass{report}

% Using symbols for footnotes
\renewcommand{\thefootnote}{\fnsymbol{footnote}}

\begin{document}

\footnote{f1}, \footnote{f2}, \footnote{f3}, \footnote{f4},

\footnote{f5}, \footnote{f6}, \footnote{f7}, \footnote{f8}, 

\footnote{f9}, \footnote{f10}

\end{document}

If I use: \footnote[1]{f10} instead of \footnote{f10}, the error is gone but does that mean that I have to count each footnote from here? Or is there an easier way to do this?

CarLaTeX
  • 62,716
ehi
  • 233

1 Answers1

10

The problem is that LaTeX provides 9 symbols when using symbol option, therefore it produces an error if you count higher. The simplest solution would be to reset the counter when you reach 9: 

\setcounter{footnote}{0}

You could use the the footmisc package. It allows for 15 symbols, and you can use perpage option to automatically reset the counter every page. 

\documentclass{report}
\usepackage[perpage]{footmisc}

% Using symbols for footnotes
\renewcommand{\thefootnote}{\fnsymbol{footnote}}

\begin{document}

\footnote{f1}, \footnote{f2}, \footnote{f3}, \footnote{f4},

\footnote{f5}, \footnote{f6}, \footnote{f7}, \footnote{f8}, 

\footnote{f9},  \footnote{f10}, \footnote{f11}, \footnote{f12}, \footnote{f13}, \footnote{f14},

\footnote{f15},

\newpage \footnote{f16}, \footnote{f17}, \footnote{f18}, 

\footnote{f19},  \footnote{f20}

\end{document}

The package also provides the symbol* option which allows you to define more than 15 symbols.

Elad Den
  • 3,941
  • 1
    Of potential interest: you can still get transient "Counter too large" errors even though no page has anywhere near the maximum number of footnotes. https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/164716/occasional-counter-too-large-error-despite-makeperpage – Ron Burk Jun 16 '22 at 19:48