Symbols instead of numbers as footnote markers

Question

How can I make LaTeX use symbols (*, †, ‡, and so on) instead of numbers to mark footnotes? (The numbers are confusing because I use superscripted numbers for citations.)

Answer 1

Use the footmisc package, with option symbol.

Answer 2

This can be done by redefining the output of the footnote counter:

\renewcommand*{\thefootnote}{\fnsymbol{footnote}}

Answer 3

You may also want to reset the footnote counter for each page. People are not familiar with the symbols beyond the double dagger, and more than (at most) 16 footnotes in a single chapter will result in an error message. To reset the counter per page, either use the footmisc option perpage or the following code:

\usepackage{perpage}
\MakePerPage{footnote}

Answer 4

To get a huge number of footnote(-symbols) you could use the alphalph package.

Answer 5

Here is some code I used a long time ago:

\@addtoreset{footnote}{page}
\renewcommand{\thefootnote}{\ifcase\value{footnote}\or(*)\or
(**)\or(***)\or(****)\or(\#)\or(\#\#)\or(\#\#\#)\or(\#\#\#\#)\or($\infty$)\fi}

The first line should be between \makeatletter and \makeatother.