Local footnotes with letters in longtable

Question

I have a document which has four numbered footnotes ("1" to "4") in the pages preceding a longtable. The table is split over two pages. A footnote inserted in the table with \footnote{} is numbered in sequence after the previous footnote and appears as "5" in the table.

To avoid confusion, I need footnotes in the table to appear as "a", "b", "c", etc. Changing the footnote labeling in the document to letters results in the table footnotes appearing as "e", "f", "g", etc.

Using \footnotemark[1]{Footnote text} resulted in a lettered footnote "a" appearing below the table, but there was no corresponding superscript mark next to the appropriate text in the table.

Is it possible to have local, lettered footnotes in a longtable in a document which has other, numbered footnotes?

Answer 1

You'll be confusing your readers, probably. Anyhow, here's a possibility:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{longtable}
\newcounter{ltfootnote}
\renewcommand{\theltfootnote}{\alph{ltfootnote}}
\makeatletter
\newenvironment{ltfootnotes}
 {\let\c@footnote\c@ltfootnote
  \let\thefootnote\theltfootnote
  \setcounter{ltfootnote}{0}}
 {}
\makeatother

\begin{document}
A footnote\footnote{A}

B footnote\footnote{B}

C footnote\footnote{C}

D footnote\footnote{D}

\begin{ltfootnotes}
\begin{longtable}{ll}
a footnote\footnote{a} & b footnote\footnote{b} \\
x & y \\
x & y \\
x & y \\
x & y \\
x & y \\
x & y \\
x & y \\
x & y \\
x & y \\
x & y \\
x & y \\
x & y \\
x & y \\
x & y \\
x & y \\
x & y \\
x & y \\
x & y \\
x & y \\
x & y \\
x & y \\
x & y \\
x & y \\
x & y \\
x & y \\
x & y \\
x & y \\
x & y \\
x & y \\
x & y \\
x & y \\
x & y \\
x & y \\
x & y \\
x & y \\
x & y \\
x & y \\
x & y \\
x & y \\
x & y \\
x & y \\
x & y \\
x & y \\
x & y \\
x & y \\
\end{longtable}
\end{ltfootnotes}

E footnote\footnote{E}
\end{document}

The "E footnote" in the next page will be number 5.