fixfoot.sty with symbols?

Question

I'm currently using fixfoot.sty(along with footmisc.sty), and I'd like to use footnote symbols (rather than numbers). fixfootdoesn't seem equipped to deal with this out of the box; it uses the original footnote command for the first occurrence on each page, so that's delegated to footmisc, and works fine. However, each repeated occurrence uses a footnote mark that fixfoot has stored in a macro—and it simply stores a hard-coded numerical footnote mark. Now, I'm guessing that changing this shouldn't be too hard. I've been trying to redefine the \@fixed@footnotecommand (line 109 in v0.3a) in my own .styfile, which works fine in terms of overriding. But… I'm not \TeX-savvy enough to make it work.

I'm guessing the place to make the “repair” is in lines 147–148, where the mark is saved (the #1 argument is a “footnote tag”):

\expandafter\xdef\csname @#1@fftn@footnote\endcsname
                  {\the\c@footnote}%

I'm guessing I need to use of \fnsymbol along with the footnote counter here. That is, something like \@fnsymbol\c@footnote (which is what \thefootnote is redefined to in footmisc.sty, under the symbol option), rather than \the\c@footnote. However, I don't seem to grok \expandafter (or probably a bunch of other relevant stuff) enough, and keep getting weird errors no matter what I try.

Any pointers would be appreciated. (Even to alternate solutions to the problem of using “fixed footnotes” such as those in fixfoot, but with symbols, preferably together with footmisc or the like, for customization.)

Answer 1

You need to patch \@fixed@footnote at another place:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage[symbol,perpage]{footmisc}
\usepackage{fixfoot}

\usepackage{etoolbox}% provides \patchcmd
\makeatletter
\patchcmd\@fixed@footnote
  {\protected@xdef\@thefnmark{\csname @#1@fftn@footnote\endcsname}}% search
  {\protected@xdef\@thefnmark{%
     \expandafter\@fnsymbol\csname @#1@fftn@footnote\endcsname}}% replace
  {}{}% success/failure
\makeatother

\DeclareFixedFootnote\fixed{This is a fixed footnote.}

\begin{document}

Some text with a fixed\fixed\ footnote. And again some text with the same\fixed    note.

\end{document}