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I'm writing a document that must fit within a predefined page limit, and therefore I must save as much space as I can. I'm using the footcite command, and my preamble contains

\usepackage[style=verbose,babel=hyphen,backend=bibtex,block=ragged,firstinits=true,isbn=false,isbn=false=false,eprint=false,maxcitenames=2]{biblatex}

and this produces something like enter image description here The question is: is there a way to prevent line breaks after each reference? Perhaps putting all references into a single column format, without line breaks?

An suggestion that would save some space is more than welcome!

apochev
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    You could try \footcites to gather some of the citations together, in the cases in which that makes sense in your document. – gusbrs Aug 08 '17 at 13:05
  • I know, but this would break the logic of the citations. I need each reference to be identified by a unique number, and replacing the line break before each new number with, for instance, a wide space – apochev Aug 08 '17 at 13:12
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    The problem here is that each footcite will produce a footnote, so the issue is less one of citation, then of how the footnotes are handled in the document. As far as I see, at least. I get your point though, but I might as well recall that the verbose style does not depend on the numbering of the footnotes to be an unambiguous reference system, so I think you might reconsider using footcites of even footcite with multiple entries if you don't need prenote/postnote, if that's not a requirement that is impinged on you from somewhere else than the citation style itself. – gusbrs Aug 08 '17 at 13:19
  • I'd like to better understand your last point, since, in general, I don't need post-notes or pre-notes. The references are indicated by a superscript, which refers to a footnote. If I put multiple references into a single footcite I get a single superscript and single footnote (as far as I know), and so there is no way for the reader to understand to which exact part of the text the citation is referring to. But maybe I'm missing something? – apochev Aug 08 '17 at 13:38
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    Do you want a simple para style for the footnotes? This would of course effect all footnotes. – TeXnician Aug 08 '17 at 13:46
  • You understand correctly, a footcite with multiple keys would generate a single superscript. – gusbrs Aug 08 '17 at 13:49
  • Note that your questions seems to be more about footnotes and their layout than about the content of the footnotes as produced by biblatex. So it is also important to see what document class you use and how it produces footnotes in general. A full MWE could give us a good starting point. – moewe Aug 08 '17 at 13:56
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    What you can do to further save space depends on what you can change in your document. If you are submitting to a journal it is unlikely you are allowed to change a lot, I'd even doubt that you are allowed to change the footnotes in the way you want. But if you are free to change details that might be fine. Maybe you can even change the citation style radically to something numeric. Depending on how often you cite certain works and on whether you have a separate bibliography at all that might save some space. – moewe Aug 08 '17 at 13:59

1 Answers1

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footcite are footnotes. So you should use a para-footnote style. As you didn't show a complete example it is not possible to say if it works with your class/document. 

\documentclass[twocolumn]{article}
\usepackage[style=verbose,babel=hyphen,backend=bibtex,block=ragged,firstinits=true,
           isbn=false,isbn=false=false,eprint=false,maxcitenames=2]{biblatex}
\usepackage[ngerman]{babel}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[para]{footmisc}

\addbibresource{biblatex-examples.bib}

\begin{document}
bllb \footcite{doody}, bööb \footcite{herrmann}, blblb \footcite{doody}
\newpage

bllb \footcite{doody}, bööb \footcite{herrmann}, blblb \footcite{doody}
\end{document}

enter image description here

Ulrike Fischer
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  • Yes, that works, thanks a lot !! :) Do you know how I can set the white space before and after each number? – apochev Aug 08 '17 at 13:58
  • Before is \footglue. Behind can only by changed by redefying @makefntext. – Ulrike Fischer Aug 08 '17 at 14:19
  • Cool !! Taking inspiration from https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/34667/140906 I redefined \@makefntext as

    \makeatletter% \long\def\@makefntext#1{% \parindent 1em\noindent \hb@xt@ 1.8em{\hss \@makefnmark}#1}%\makeatother

    and \setlength{\footglue}{0pt} allowed me to get the right spacing

     – apochev Aug 08 '17 at 14:32