How to make bold footnotes

Question

How can I make bold the symbols and their brackets that I choose for footnotes?. For example, I don't want this [¶] as the 9th footnote (\mathparagraph), but this [¶].

I change Heiko Oberdiek's answer in that question. The code is below:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{wasysym}

\makeatletter
\newcommand*{\myfnsymbolsingle}[1]{%
    \ensuremath{%
        \ifcase#1% 0
        \or % 1
     *%   
    \or % 2
    \dagger
    \or % 3  
    \twonotes
    \or % 4   
    \mathsection
    \or % 5
    \natural
    \or
    \sharp
    \or
    \ddagger
    \or
    \eighthnote
            \or
    \mathparagraph
        \or % 1
    **%   
    \or % 2
    \dagger\dagger
    \or % 3  
    \twonotes\twonotes
    \or % 4   
    \mathsection\mathsection
    \or % 5
    \natural\natural
    \or
    \sharp\sharp
        \or
    \ddagger\ddagger
    \or
    \eighthnote\eighthnote
        \or
    \mathparagraph\mathparagraph
        \else % >= 6
        \@ctrerr  
        \fi
    }%   
}   
\makeatother

\newcommand*{\myfnsymbol}[1]{%
    \myfnsymbolsingle{\value{#1}}%
}

% remove upper boundary by multiplying the symbols if needed
\usepackage{alphalph}
\newalphalph{\myfnsymbolmult}[mult]{\myfnsymbolsingle}{}

\renewcommand*{\thefootnote}{%
    [\myfnsymbolsingle{\value{footnote}}]%
}

\begin{document}
        trrt\footnote{a}

         fghfgh\footnote{b}\footnote{c}\footnote{d}\footnote{e}%
    \footnote{f}\footnote{g}\footnote{h}\footnote{i}\footnote{j}%

    fghfgh\footnote{b}\footnote{c}\footnote{d}\footnote{e}%
    \footnote{f}\footnote{g}\footnote{h}\footnote{i}%
\end{document}

How can I do it?

Thanks in advanced!!!

P.S.: And one not so important question: I believe that the code witch I made has pieces that are not necessary. Am I right?

Answer 1

Using the following:

\renewcommand*{\thefootnote}{%
    {\mathversion{bold}\bfseries [\myfnsymbolsingle{\value{footnote}}]}%
}

should do what you want in principle (and it does for the \mathparagraph symbol), but some fonts are not available in bold, so some of the symbols won't be bold in this setup. See warnings such as:

LaTeX Font Warning: Font shape `U/wasy/b/n' in size <6> not available
(Font)              Font shape `U/wasy/m/n' tried instead on input line **.

in the log file.

In case things are difficult to distinguish by eye, use \showoutput at the end of your document to see the actual fonts used, e.g.:

.......\mathon
.......\OMS/cmsy/b/n/6 {
.......\OMS/cmsy/b/n/6 {
.......\mathoff

This is the double \mathparagraph from the last footnote in your example (\footnote{i}). Indeed, if, before \end{document}, you insert \show\mathparagraph, you'll see on the terminal:

> \mathparagraph=\mathchar"27B.

So this is the character with \mathcode "027B which means an ordinary symbol (class 0 also known as \mathord, cf. TeXbook p. 154) from family 2 and position "7B in the font encoding (TeX's hexadecimal notation for literal integers). Then, if you insert this:

{\mathversion{bold}%
 \makeatletter
 \check@mathfonts
 \makeatother
 \showthe\textfont2
}

at the same place to see what is math family 2 in \textstyle of \mathversion{bold} (\textstyle because your \myfnsymbolsingle makes an inline formula), you'll see:

> \OMS/cmsy/b/n/10 .

as in the output of \showoutput (except for the size, because the footnote symbol at the bottom of the page is set using \@textsuperscript which does \fontsize\sf@size\z@). Finally, \showoutput mentions character { which is indeed in position "7B in the OMS encoding (see page 33 of encguide.pdf, usually accessible with texdoc fontenc).

In your file, the symbols that miss a bold variant in the requested size are \twonotes and \eighthnote from wasysym. It doesn't appear necessary to me to force them to be bolder than they already are when comparing them with the other symbols, but if you really want to apply a “poor man's bold” technique to them, you can do:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{wasysym}
\usepackage{etoolbox}

\makeatletter

\newlength{\bshft}              % shifting amount to create fake bold
\setlength{\bshft}{0.15pt}

\newrobustcmd*{\fakebold}[1]{%
  {\ooalign{#1\cr
  \kern-\bshft#1\cr
  \kern\bshft#1}}%
}

\newrobustcmd*{\twonotesbold}{\fakebold{\twonotes}}
\newrobustcmd*{\eighthnotebold}{\fakebold{\eighthnote}}

\newcommand*{\myfnsymbolsingle}[1]{%
(...) % what follows: same as you already have, except for
      % \twonotes and \eighthnote, as specified below

then replace:

• the three occurrences of \twonotes with \twonotesbold, and

• the three occurrences of \eighthnote with \eighthnotebold.