Memoir and Footmisc problem

Question

After the last update of footmisc, reledmac and footmisc are incompatible. This mwe shows the basis of my environment.

\documentclass{memoir} 
\usepackage{footmisc} 
\usepackage{reledmac}     
\begin{document} 
\beginnumbering 
\pstart 
\edtext{Hello}{\Afootnote{world.}} 
\pend 
\endnumbering 
\end{document}

I inserted a very common font in fact the font I use is Brill. I didn't know how to go about showing the code I use. — Paolo Mascetti, Feb 17 '22 at 12:57
You don't need any font setting at all to produce the problem, polyglossia isn't needed either. — Ulrike Fischer, Feb 17 '22 at 13:00
In fact, you don't need most settings either. The problem arises in the interaction of reledmac (2022-02-04), (footmisc 2022-02-14) and is specific to the memoir class, as evidenced by this MWE: \documentclass{memoir} \usepackage{footmisc} \usepackage{reledmac} \begin{document} \beginnumbering \pstart \edtext{Hello}{\Afootnote{world.}} \pend \endnumbering \end{document} The program gets stuck in a compilation loop and generates infinite pages. Doesn't occur with other documentclasses, such as article, book, report, scrbook... — marquinho, Feb 17 '22 at 13:37
@Paolo: If you can confirm that this is the case (problem is specific to memoir), I'd recommend editing your question to make this clear :) — marquinho, Feb 17 '22 at 13:38
Yes, I confirm that this the case: memoir, reledmac and footmisc. — Paolo Mascetti, Feb 17 '22 at 14:02
@Paolo: great. Could you please add that info to the question then? And feel free to use my simpler MWE in the question, as it displays the same problem. — marquinho, Feb 17 '22 at 14:09
I'm (memoir maintainer here), why are you loading footmisc in the first place? What exactly do you need from footmisc? — daleif, Feb 17 '22 at 15:55
@daleif footmisc wants to be loaded before reledmac and if you try to load after you get an error message — Paolo Mascetti, Feb 17 '22 at 17:03
That does not answer my question. What exactly from footmisc do you need that is not already provided from memoir it self? — daleif, Feb 17 '22 at 17:16
For the footnotes in reledmac environment I use the two columns options and a suffix in the number i. e. 2f and 2i for second note in french and secon note in italian. To have the same aspect in the paragraph outside reledmac I use footmisc. Also for indentation. — Paolo Mascetti, Feb 17 '22 at 17:23
@daleif and Paolo: in keeping with the spirit of SE, how about opening a new question for that (say, "how to add a suffix to footnotemark in reledmac depending on the language")? The present question, as it stands, identifies a currently existing compatibility issue with footmisc. Plus, it already got answers. The new question would be devoted to finding a workaround within reledmac and without footmisc. Quite different focus, I believe. Just my suggestion :) — marquinho, Feb 17 '22 at 18:56
@marquinho About the first questio I can send you the standard code I use in the reledmac environment, very simple and standard code. About the second question I.m very sorry but I have no time at all because I am working on a long document that takes up all my time. — Paolo Mascetti, Feb 18 '22 at 08:52
@Paolo I was partly answering daleif's comment, which he however ninja-deleted... What I meant was: if the two answers below didn't solve the problem, and if you need help setting up the footnote marks "2i" and "2f" without using footmisc, feel free to write a new question, the community will be happy to help. But if they did, and it works, then all the better! — marquinho, Feb 19 '22 at 15:21
(f.i., reledmac itself offers some tools to customize your footnotemark: see here) — marquinho, Feb 19 '22 at 15:24

score 5 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 17 '22 at 15:14

As far as I can see the problem always lurked in the redefinitions memoir does to the internal output routine commands of LaTeX. You can also produce it, for example, with your example and the old footmisc from 2011, if you add the option "bottom" to footmisc.

The problem only became more appearent new due to the new footmisc being based on updates to the internal LaTeX output routine commands. They are currently only in footmisc, but will eventually make it to the kernel itself.

For the moment you can combine memoir and footmisc, by using the old footmisc release, i.e., by using

\usepackage{footmisc}[=v5]

That is obviously not a permanent solution because it takes footmisc back to its 2011 version (including the bugs it had then), but it should get you the same behavior as before for now.

Midterm when the new output routine ends up in the LaTeX format, memoir needs to change its behavior and instead if flately overwriting parts, use the (then) available interfaces to implements its version.

By the way: it is not reledmac + footmisc that are incompatible. Your example works perfectly well if you use a different documentclass, say article or book with your example. So please update the title of this question.

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 17 '22 at 16:31

Here is a possible workaround

\documentclass{memoir}
\usepackage{footmisc}
\usepackage{reledmac}
\makeatletter
\AtBeginDocument{
  \appto\@makecol@appendblocks{%
    \m@mdoextrafeet%
    \m@mopsidefoot%
    \m@mopsidebar}%
}
\makeatother
\begin{document}
\beginnumbering
\pstart
\edtext{Hello}{\Afootnote{world.}}
\pend
\endnumbering
\end{document}

it is probably mostly \appto\@makecol@appendblocks{\m@mdoextrafeet} that is missing when footmisc overwrites \@makecol

Memoir and Footmisc problem

2 Answers2