Disappearing Footnote

Question

Goals: I would like to have the title, author, date, and the table of content on the same page. I also want the capability of being able to have a footnote to the author.

What I have done so far: I came up with the following hack. It works except for the footnote. (This is my first ever hack and therefore, it is probably pretty amateurish, may be something I should not be doing in the first place.)

I am open to any other method as long as I can achieve the stated goals with hyperref working. (It would be also nice if I can have control over the fonts used.)

\documentclass[12pt]{report}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[ocgcolorlinks, hypertexnames]{hyperref}


\makeatletter
\renewcommand{\tableofcontents}[1]{%
\begin{center}%
    \renewcommand\thefootnote{\@fnsymbol\c@footnote}%
    \let \footnote \thanks
    {\huge\bfseries \@title \par}%
    \vskip 2em%
    {\large
     \lineskip .75em%
      \begin{tabular}[t]{c}%
        {\bfseries \@author}
      \end{tabular}\par}%
      \vskip 1em%
    {\large \@date \par}%     
  \section*{\center{#1}}
  \end{center}\par
    \@starttoc{toc}%
      }
\makeatother

\renewcommand{\thechapter}{}
\renewcommand{\chaptername}{}

\title{This is a test}
\author{John Doe\footnote{where is the foot note?}}

\begin{document}
\tableofcontents{Table of Contents}
\chapter{Preface}
 \lipsum[1]
\chapter{First Thing}
  \lipsum[2]
  \chapter{Second Thing}
  \lipsum[3]
   \chapter{Third Thing}
  \lipsum[4]
\end{document}

The first page of the output is given below.

Answer 1

This is very common; that a \foonote is swallowed. A similar situation happens when using \footnote within a table. One way around this is to typeset a \footnotemark inside \author, and then typeset a \footnotetext outside. Here's a little hack to do this:

![enter image description here][1]

\documentclass[12pt]{report}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[ocgcolorlinks, hypertexnames]{hyperref}
\makeatletter
\renewcommand{\tableofcontents}[1]{%
\begin{center}%
    \renewcommand\thefootnote{@fnsymbol\c@footnote}%
    \let \footnote \thanks
    {\huge\bfseries @title \par}%
    \vskip 2em%
    {\large
     \lineskip .75em%
      \begin{tabular}[t]{c}%
        {\bfseries @author}
      \end{tabular}\par}%
      \vskip 1em%
    {\large @date \par}%

  \section*{\center{#1}}
  \end{center}\par
    @starttoc{toc}%
      }
\makeatother
\renewcommand{\thechapter}{}
\renewcommand{\chaptername}{}
\title{This is a test}
\author{John Doe\footnotemark}
\begin{document}
\tableofcontents{Table of Contents}
\makeatletter
{\renewcommand{\thefootnote}{}% Print  for counter value
\footnotetext{where is the foot note?}}
\makeatother
\chapter{Preface}
 \lipsum[1]
\chapter{First Thing}
  \lipsum[2]
  \chapter{Second Thing}
  \lipsum[3]
   \chapter{Third Thing}
  \lipsum[4]
\end{document}​

In order to maintain consistency in footnote referencing (and since I'm not sure how extensive you want to use the footnote symbol numbering), I've temporarily renewed how the footnote counter is displayed:

{\renewcommand{\thefootnote}{*}% Print * for counter value
\footnotetext{where is the foot note?}}

The temporary change just affects the display of the counter within the group. [1]: https://i.stack.imgur.com/W1cfL.png

Answer 2

\usepackage[symbol]{footmisc}

(http://ctan.org/pkg/footmisc) for the symbol (before hyperref!) and then just use \footnotemark where you want the footnotemark and \footnotetext{...} after the TOC:

\author{John Doe\footnotemark}

\begin{document}
\tableofcontents{Table of Contents}
\footnotetext{Here is the foot note!}

Edit: without footmisc package and applying little change to your code:

\documentclass[12pt]{report}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[ocgcolorlinks, hypertexnames]{hyperref}

\makeatletter
\renewcommand{\tableofcontents}[1]{%
\begin{center}%
%    \renewcommand\thefootnote{\@fnsymbol\c@footnote}% DELETED
    \let \footnote \thanks
    {\huge\bfseries \@title \par}%
    \vskip 2em%
    {\large
     \lineskip .75em%
      \begin{tabular}[t]{c}%
        {\bfseries \@author}
      \end{tabular}\par}%
      \vskip 1em%
    {\large \@date \par}%     
  \section*{\center{#1}}
  \end{center}\par
    \@starttoc{toc}%
      }
\makeatother

\renewcommand{\thechapter}{}
\renewcommand{\chaptername}{}

\title{This is a test}
\renewcommand{\thefootnote}{\fnsymbol{footnote}}% INSERTED    
\author{John Doe\footnotemark}% INSTEAD OF \footnotetext{...}

\begin{document}

\tableofcontents{Table of Contents}
\footnotetext{Here is the foot note!}% INSERTED
\renewcommand{\thefootnote}{\arabic{footnote}}% INSERTED
% \chapter{...} resets the footnote number to one
\chapter{Preface}
 \lipsum[1]
 This is a test.\footnote{This is a footnote.}
\chapter{First Thing}
  \lipsum[2]
  \chapter{Second Thing}
  \lipsum[3]
   \chapter{Third Thing}
  \lipsum[4]
\end{document}

Answer 3

Do you need report?

If you could switch to article you could do it with 'standard'. But you must change chapter to section, section to subsection...

\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\usepackage{lipsum}

%some additional requested format changes
\usepackage{sectsty}
\setcounter{secnumdepth}{0}
\sectionfont{\huge\bfseries}

\title{This is a test}
\author{John Doe\footnote{where is the foot note?}}

\begin{document}
\maketitle
\tableofcontents
\clearpage

\section{Preface}
 \lipsum[1]
\section{First Thing}
  \lipsum[2]
  \section{Second Thing}
  \lipsum[3]
  \section{Third Thing}
  \lipsum[4]

\end{document}

Answer 4

Would it be ok for you to change \maketitle and not \tableofcontents? Or better, define a new \maketitleWithToc

\documentclass[12pt]{report}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[ocgcolorlinks, hypertexnames]{hyperref}


\makeatletter
  \newcommand\maketitleWithToc{\begin{titlepage}%
  \let\footnotesize\small
  \let\footnoterule\relax
  \let \footnote \thanks
  \null\vfil
  \vskip 60\p@
  \begin{center}%
    {\LARGE \@title \par}%
    \vskip 3em%
    {\large
     \lineskip .75em%
      \begin{tabular}[t]{c}%
        \@author
      \end{tabular}\par}%
      \vskip 1.5em%
    {\large \@date \par}%       % Set date in \large size.
  \end{center}\par
%%%Insertion start
\section*{\center{Table of contents}}
\@starttoc{toc}
%%%Insertion end
  \@thanks
  \vfil\null
  \end{titlepage}%
  \setcounter{footnote}{0}%
  \global\let\thanks\relax
  \global\let\maketitle\relax
  \global\let\@thanks\@empty
  \global\let\@author\@empty
  \global\let\@date\@empty
  \global\let\@title\@empty
  \global\let\title\relax
  \global\let\author\relax
  \global\let\date\relax
  \global\let\and\relax
}

\makeatother

\renewcommand{\thechapter}{}
\renewcommand{\chaptername}{}

\title{This is a test}
\author{John Doe\footnote{where is the foot note?}}

\begin{document}
\maketitleWithToc

\chapter{Preface}
 \lipsum[1]
\chapter{First Thing}
  \lipsum[2]
  \chapter{Second Thing}
  \lipsum[3]
   \chapter{Third Thing}
  \lipsum[4]
\end{document}

Answer 5

I am submitting this solution only to capture the full conversation below the accepted answer.

\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{sectsty}
\usepackage[ocgcolorlinks, hypertexnames]{hyperref}

\setcounter{secnumdepth}{0}
\title{\huge\bfseries This is a test}
\author{\textbf{John Doe}\footnote{where is the foot note?}}

\begin{document}
\maketitle
\center\tableofcontents
\clearpage
\sectionfont{\huge\bfseries}
\begin{flushleft}
\section{Preface}
\vspace{10pt}
 \lipsum[1]
 \pagebreak
\section{First Thing}
\vspace{10pt}
  \lipsum[2]
  \pagebreak
  \section{Second Thing}
  \vspace{10pt}
  \lipsum[3]
  \pagebreak
  \section{Third Thing}
  \vspace{10pt}
  \lipsum[4]
\end{flushleft}
\end{document}