In the Tufte template... How can I make LaTeX use symbols (*, †, ‡, and so on) instead of numbers to mark sidenotes?

Question

Sorry for the possible naive question.... I am using the wonderful Tufte template... How can I make LaTeX use symbols (*, †, ‡, and so on) instead of numbers to mark sidenotes?

I tried the solution proposed in Symbols instead of numbers as footnote markers, but is not working for the Tufte template.

Answer 1

Simply add the following to your preamble:

\makeatletter
    \def\thempfn{\fnsymbol{\@mpfn}}
\makeatother

Answer 2

You'll need to do two or three things to pull this off.

First, tell LaTeX to use footnote symbols instead of numbers:

% Works up to nine sidenotes
\renewcommand*{\thefootnote}{\fnsymbol{footnote}}

Next, we'll want to reset the footnote counter at each page or we'll soon run out of symbols to use:

% Ensure that the sidenote marker is reset at each page
\usepackage{perpage}
\MakePerPage{footnote}

Finally, we'll probably want to define some more footnote symbols so we can use more than nine per page:

% Define up to 18 footnote symbols
\makeatletter
\def\@fnsymbol#1{%
  \ensuremath{%
    \ifcase#1\or
      *\or
      \dagger\or
      \ddagger\or
      \mathsection\or
      \mathparagraph\or
      \|\or
      **\or
      \dagger\dagger\or
      \ddagger\ddagger\or
      \mathsection\mathsection\or
      \mathparagraph\mathparagraph\or
      \|\|\or
      ***\or
      \dagger\dagger\dagger\or
      \ddagger\ddagger\ddagger\or
      \mathsection\mathsection\mathsection\or
      \mathparagraph\mathparagraph\mathparagraph\or
      \|\|\|
    \else
      % We've run out of footnote symbols for this page.
      % We would normally emit an error here,
      % but because the perpage package won't work until the
      % second pass, we need to do something less abrupt.
    \fi
  }%
}
\makeatother

(In any case, we'll want to redefine the \@fnsymbol macro so that it doesn't call \@ctrerr. The perpage package doesn't reset the counter on the first pass of LateX, and if we've used more footnotes on a page than we've defined symbols for, LaTeX will call \@ctrerr which will emit an error.)

And here's an example document that shows everything put together:

\documentclass{tufte-handout}

% Works up to nine sidenotes
\renewcommand*{\thefootnote}{\fnsymbol{footnote}}

% Ensure that the sidenote marker is reset at each page
\usepackage{perpage}
\MakePerPage{footnote}

% Define up to 18 footnote symbols
\makeatletter
\def\@fnsymbol#1{%
  \ensuremath{%
    \ifcase#1\or
      *\or
      \dagger\or
      \ddagger\or
      \mathsection\or
      \mathparagraph\or
      \|\or
      **\or
      \dagger\dagger\or
      \ddagger\ddagger\or
      \mathsection\mathsection\or
      \mathparagraph\mathparagraph\or
      \|\|\or
      ***\or
      \dagger\dagger\dagger\or
      \ddagger\ddagger\ddagger\or
      \mathsection\mathsection\mathsection\or
      \mathparagraph\mathparagraph\mathparagraph\or
      \|\|\|
    \else
      % We've run out of footnote symbols for this page.
      % We would normally emit an error here,
      % but because the perpage package won't work until the
      % second pass, we need to do something less abrupt.
    \fi
  }%
}
\makeatother

% Because I'm too lazy to type it twice...
\newcommand{\printsidenotes}{%
  First note.\sidenote{First, a sidenote.}
  Second note.\sidenote{A second sidenote.}
  Third note.\sidenote{Finally, a sidenote!}

  Fourth note.\sidenote{Another sidenote.}
  Fifth note.\sidenote{Yet another sidenote.}
  Sixth note.\sidenote{When will they stop?!}

  Seventh note.\sidenote{Bet you didn't expect another sidenote.}
  Eighth note.\sidenote{We normally wouldn't be able to see this many sidenotes on a single page using the regular set of footnote symbols.}
  Ninth note.\sidenote{But we've extended the set to allow for this silliness.}

  Tenth note.\sidenote{Note 10.}
  Eleventh note.\sidenote{Note 11.}
  Twelfth note.\sidenote{Note 12.}

  Thirteenth note.\sidenote{Note 13.}
  Fourteenth note.\sidenote{Note 14.}
  Fifteenth note.\sidenote{Note 15.}

  Sixteenth note.\sidenote{Note 16.}
  Seventeenth note.\sidenote{Note 17.}
  Eighteenth note.\sidenote{Note 18.}

  Nineteenth note.\sidenote{Too many sidenotes!}
}


\title{Sidenote marks}
\author{Kevin M. Godby}

\begin{document}

\maketitle

\printsidenotes

% Test to make sure the sidenote markers reset after a page break
\clearpage
\printsidenotes

\end{document}