14

I would like two footnote threads:

  • one that uses traditional American footnote symbols (such as *†‡§¶‖) and whose counter is reset every page
  • one that uses continuous (Arabic numeral) numbering throughout the entire document.

I also like my footnote markers to be set into the margin, with a small separating space.

Let's start with a minimal example:

\documentclass{memoir}

\footmarkstyle{\textsuperscript{#1\ }} % to have an additional space after footnote marks (not easily possible with the footmisc package)
\setlength{\footmarkwidth}{-1sp} \setlength{\footmarksep}{0em} % same effect as \usepackage[flushmargin]{footmisc}
\counterwithout{footnote}{chapter} % continuous numbering of footnotes across chapters

\begin{document}

\chapter{Introduction}
This is dummy text.\footnote{This numeric footnote should be prefixed by the counter 1, as it currently is.}

\chapter{Document body}
This is dummy text.\footnote{This numeric footnote should be prefixed by the counter 2, as it currently is.}
This is dummy text.\footnote{I want this footnote to be introduced by the symbol \(^{*}\) and be placed above the previous footnote, even though it comes later in the text.}

\end{document}

Basically, the last footnote should be symbolic and should appear above the numerical ones; in general a stack of symbolic ones should appear above a stack of numeric ones on any given page, without additional vertical separation.

(Bonus if there is an easy way for me to specify the symbol sequence.)

There is a related question, but this one is different in coverage and trickier.

Community
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Lover of Structure
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1 Answers1

10

The package bigfoot allows easily for this:

\documentclass{memoir}
\usepackage{bigfoot}

\DeclareNewFootnote{A}
\renewcommand{\thefootnoteA}{\fnsymbol{footnoteA}}
\MakePerPage{footnoteA}
\DeclareNewFootnote{B} % If we omitted this declaration (and used \footnote instead), that'd place the standard footnotes _above_ the \footnoteA ones.

\footmarkstyle{\textsuperscript{#1\ }} % to have an additional space after footnote marks (not easily possible with the footmisc package)
\setlength{\footmarkwidth}{-1sp} \setlength{\footmarksep}{0em} % same effect as \usepackage[flushmargin]{footmisc}
\counterwithout{footnote}{chapter} % continuous numbering of footnotes across chapters

\begin{document}

\chapter{Introduction}
This is dummy text.\footnoteB{This numeric footnote should be prefixed by the counter 1, as it currently is.}

\chapter{Document body}
This is dummy text.\footnoteB{This numeric footnote should be prefixed by the counter 2, as it currently is.}
This is dummy text.\footnoteA{I want this footnote to be introduced by the symbol \(^{*}\) and be placed above the previous footnote, even though it comes later in the text.}

\newpage

This is dummy text.\footnoteB{This numeric footnote should be prefixed by the counter 3, as it currently is.}
This is dummy text.\footnoteA{I want this footnote to be introduced by the symbol \(^{*}\) and be placed above the previous footnote, even though it comes later in the text.}

\end{document}

The order in which the footnotes appear on the page is based on their declarations in the preamble.

Lover of Structure
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egreg
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  • Thanks! is there an easy way of disabling the vertical space? (bigfoot's documentation itself seems to play around with this but doesn't tell me how to do it, I think.) – Lover of Structure Sep 29 '12 at 18:47
  • @user14996 The separation is the same as it's used between the text and the first block of footnotes; if you zero it, then the footnotes will run into the text block. – egreg Sep 29 '12 at 21:25
  • It would be great if the package author added this as a refinement. – Lover of Structure Sep 30 '12 at 01:39
  • (This isn't about your solution, which is good.) I noticed that bigfoot together with \raggedbottom and "here"-placement (H table placement with the float package) in some complex document I have leads to plenty of overfull \vboxes (in my case: tables that don't fit onto the page but fail to trigger page breaks). Is this a known problem? – Lover of Structure Oct 03 '12 at 03:33
  • @user14996 The problem is most probably, due to [H] placements which give too little flexibility to the page. – egreg Oct 03 '12 at 08:49
  • I find that, outside of the TeX community, "[H] table placement with \raggedbottom text (though not necessarily \raggedbottom table placement, for a good reason)" is very common. Also, the copyediting guides that I know of tend to not have an opinion on table placement. I'm not disagreeing with you, just emphasizing the importance and popularity of [H]. – Lover of Structure Oct 04 '12 at 02:37
  • Yeah, I get too many Overfull \vbox ...-messages (and plenty of tables that are placed in a way that pages overflow vertically). Also it doesn't seem to play well with hyperref. (Using manyfoot and perpage has exactly the same effect/result.) Writing this down partly for documentation/reference. – Lover of Structure Dec 30 '12 at 08:53
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    @LoverofStructure: The space between the two footnote blocks can be changed with \skip\footinsB=0pt. – Ulrike Fischer Mar 04 '13 at 08:58