How to prevent footnotes leaving empty space at the top of the page?

Question

I have a long list of footnotes at the end of my document (as opposed to them being at the bottom of the page they were referred from), and while it looks almost okay now, the problem is that when the first page of the footnotes is full, these continue on the next page, but are bottom-aligned on that second page, leaving off an empty area above, presumably for content (of which there is none). This looks silly, because the pages are dedicated to footnotes only, and even though I understand the bottom alignment, as there is no content, perhaps there should not be empty space?

How do I typeset these? My current source code is as follows:

\footnotetext[1]{A footnote.}
\footnotetext[2]{Another footnote.}
\footnotetext[2]{And so on...}

At some point the above sequence results in the new page. I am using XeTex, no overriding anything, but I am willing to include extra packages like footmisc and what not, or perhaps override commands or similar approaches. However, I still believe there is simple solution to this? Isn't there some sort of control to allowe dedicated footnote pages?

Answer 1

REVISED SOLUTION (headnotes environment)

I have created the headnotes environment, which tries to emulate the look of footnotes, but beginning at the top of the page (and occupy the page all by themselves). There are some class-specific dimensions in my definition (article class) which may have to be recalibrated for other document classes.

In this MWE, I have 2 pages of text, followed by 2 pages of footnotes, 2 pages of headnotes, and finally 2 more pages of text, the purpose being to compare margin placement, page number location, rulebar locations, etc.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{everypage}
\usepackage[nopar]{lipsum}
% THESE ARE LaTeX DEFAULTS; CAN CHANGE IF NEEDED.
\def\PageTopMargin{1in}
\def\PageLeftMargin{1in}
\newlength\svparindent
\newenvironment{headnotes}%
  {\svparindent=\parindent\relax\gdef\headruleactive{T}\headnoterule}%
  {\atxy{0in}{0in}{\gdef\headruleactive{F}}}
\newcommand\headnoterule{%
 \AddEverypageHook{\if T\headruleactive%
    \atxy{\dimexpr\PageLeftMargin+\oddsidemargin}%
      {\dimexpr\PageTopMargin+\headsep+\headheight+\topmargin+1pt}%
      {\rule{32ex}{.4pt}}% THIS EMULATES THE \footnoterule
    \addtolength{\textheight}{-1.2ex}\addtolength{\headsep}{1.2ex}%
    \addtolength{\footskip}{-1.2ex}%
  \fi}}
\newcommand\atxy[3]{%
 \AddThispageHook{\smash{\hspace*{\dimexpr-\PageLeftMargin-\hoffset+#1\relax}%
  \raisebox{\dimexpr\PageTopMargin+\voffset-#2\relax}{#3}}}}
\def\headruleactive{F}
\newcounter{headnote}
\refstepcounter{headnote}
\newcommand\headnote[2][]{\parindent=\dimexpr\svparindent-4pt\relax%
  \footnotesize$^\theheadnote$#2\par\refstepcounter{headnote}}
\begin{document}

\lipsum[1-6]\clearpage
\footnotetext[1]{This is my footnote}
\footnotetext[2]{\lipsum[1]}
\footnotetext[3]{\lipsum[2]}
\footnotetext[4]{\lipsum[3-5]}
\footnotetext[5]{\lipsum[2]}
\footnotetext[6]{\lipsum[3-5]}
\footnotetext[7]{\lipsum[2]}
\footnotetext[8]{\lipsum[3-5]}
\clearpage

\begin{headnotes}
\headnote{This is my headnote}
\headnote{\lipsum[1]}
\headnote{\lipsum[2]}
\headnote{\lipsum[3-5]}
\headnote{\lipsum[2]}
\headnote{\lipsum[3-5]}
\headnote{\lipsum[2]}
\headnote{\lipsum[3-5]}
\end{headnotes}

\clearpage \lipsum[1-6]
\end{document}

---

ORIGINAL SOLUTION (manual intervention)

While it is not fully automated,you can add the appropriate \vspace to the end of the last footnote. You will know if you added too much if the notes drop back to the bottom of the page.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[nopar]{lipsum}
\begin{document}

\footnotetext[1]{This is my footnote}

\footnotetext[2]{\lipsum[1]}

\footnotetext[3]{\lipsum[2]}

\footnotetext[4]{\lipsum[3-5]}

\footnotetext[5]{\lipsum[2]}

\footnotetext[6]{\lipsum[3-5]}

\footnotetext[7]{\lipsum[2]}

\footnotetext[8]{\lipsum[3-5]\vspace{2.9in}}

\end{document}