biblatex repeated citations in footnotes that point back to earlier footnotes

Question

I am using biblatex as follows:

\usepackage[style=verbose-note,backend=bibtex]{biblatex}
\renewcommand{\cite}{\autocite} % citations in footnotes

This works almost as I want it. What I still would like is that a repeated citation (say I \cite{A} in p. 1, and then I \cite{A} again in p. 2) should point back to the earlier citation. So, in this case, only one footnote should be generated, and both p. 1 and p. 2 should have a link to that footnote (which is on p. 1 only). Is this possible?

Do you want something like biblatex: which style for a footnote once then nothing? or Biblatex cite with footnote only once, with use of brackets? If not, could you explain what you are missing in the answers? Please bear in mind though that readers normally will expect footnotes to be on the bottom of the page they are issued and not somewhere else (it might get quite nasty to find the reference then in a long document with lots of footnotes). — moewe, Sep 09 '14 at 09:44

score 4 · Accepted Answer · edited Sep 29 '22 at 23:54

A rather simple version that (obviously) cannot deal with pre- or postnotes is this

\makeatletter
\DeclareCiteCommand{\myfootcite}
  {}
  {\usebibmacro{citeindex}%
   \usebibmacro{myfootcite}}
  {}
  {}
\newbibmacro*{myfootcite}{%
  \ifciteseen
    {\usebibmacro{myfootcite:note}}
    {\mkbibfootnote{\usebibmacro{footcite:full}%
     \usebibmacro{footcite:save}}}}
\newbibmacro*{myfootcite:note}{\footref{cbx@\csuse{cbx@f@\thefield{entrykey}}}}
\makeatother

We define a new command \myfootcite which does not print post- or pre-notes. The macro myfootcite it calls just issues \footref on the proper footnote (if the work has been cited before and already has a footnote) or creates a new footnote.

The command is based on the sets of macros defined in verbose-note.

We need in implementation of \footref so we can use this, see Reference different places to the same footnote. In the MWE below, I used scrextend i.e. the KOMA version to get \footref (if you use any of the KOMA document classes, you won't have to load scrextend manually; the memoir class also provides \footref out of the box; footmisc also has an implementation; see also Footnotes whose texts are identical).

MWE

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{scrextend}
\usepackage[british]{babel}
\usepackage{csquotes}
\usepackage[style=verbose-note]{biblatex}
\usepackage[colorlinks=true]{hyperref}
\addbibresource{biblatex-examples.bib}
\makeatletter
\DeclareCiteCommand{\myfootcite}
  {}
  {\usebibmacro{citeindex}%
   \usebibmacro{myfootcite}}
  {}
  {}
\newbibmacro*{myfootcite}{%
  \ifciteseen
    {\usebibmacro{myfootcite:note}}
    {\mkbibfootnote{\usebibmacro{footcite:full}%
     \usebibmacro{footcite:save}}}}
\newbibmacro*{myfootcite:note}{\footref{cbx@\csuse{cbx@f@\thefield{entrykey}}}}
\makeatother
\begin{document}
First citation.\myfootcite{cicero}
First citation.\myfootcite{knuth:ct:a}
Lorem\footnote{ipsum} dolor\myfootcite{wilde} sit\footnote{amet} and something\myfootcite{wilde}
Second citation.\myfootcite{cicero}
\printbibliography
\end{document}

enter image description here

This is great! Unfortunately, it doesn't deal very well with citations before/after commas/periods, nor with citations of multiple works (\cite{A,B}). Any idea how it could be improved to deal with that? — Dreixel, Sep 09 '14 at 13:59
@Dreixel What's wrong with citations before or after commas/full stops? How would you multiple citations to look like? I suppose \cite{A,B} then ought to produce two different footnotes (separated?)? A single footnote with both citations will not make much sense, because then a subsequent citation of either work will have to trigger a new footnote. — moewe, Sep 09 '14 at 14:06
Try \DeclareCiteCommand{\myfootcite} {} {\usebibmacro{citeindex}% \usebibmacro{myfootcite}} {\mkbibsuperscript{,}} {} — moewe, Sep 09 '14 at 14:10
After a bit of research, this seems to be the only solution on TeX SE that actually works. Thanks man! — Filippo Bistaffa, Sep 08 '16 at 08:17
For me this does not work. The footnotes are empty (ther are numbers, but nothing afterwards). It works if I use \footcite in place of \myfootcite. — M. Winter, Sep 12 '23 at 13:12
@M.Winter I just checked the MWE: It still produces the same output shown in the answer, which is what I think was asked for in the question. If that does not work for you or you want something else, I suggest you ask a new question along with a compilable example document explaining what you get and what you would like to get instead. — moewe, Sep 12 '23 at 19:59

biblatex repeated citations in footnotes that point back to earlier footnotes

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