Indentation in footnote

Question

I have a small Problem with indentation in LaTeX footnotes:

   \documentclass[draft,12pt,a4paper]{article}
   \usepackage[footnote,printonlyused]{acronym}
   \begin{document}
   foo\footnote{foo: this footnotetext explaines what foo is}
   bar\footnote{bar: this very very very very very very very long text explains in  two lines what bar is, it would be nice if this line is indented behind the colon, starting below the 'this'}
   \end{document}

As you can see in the example, I repeat the word that has the footnote attached in the footnote again, everything works fine so far. But if I have too much text in the footnote, so that it spawns over more than one line in the footnotes, it looks 'wrong': the text in the second line starts at the beginning of the line, not as it should be below the first letter after the colon and the following space. How can I adjust the space in front of the second line, so that the text starts more towards the middle of the page?

example as is at the moment:

     foo¹
     bar²
     -----------
     ¹ foo: this footnotetext explaines what foo is
     ² bar: this very very very very very very very long text explains in  two lines what bar
     is, it would be nice if this line is indented behind the colon, starting below the 'this'

example as it should look:

     foo¹
     bar²
     -----------
     ¹ foo: this footnotetext explaines what foo is
     ² bar: this very very very very very very very long text explains in  two lines what bar
            is, it would be nice if this line is indented behind the colon, starting below 
            the 'this'

Answer 1

Maybe this help. Here. This is the complete definition of the command.

\deffootnote[<width of mark>]
{<indent of footnote text>}
{<paragraph indent in the footnote text>}
{<definition of mark>}

Code:

\documentclass[draft,12pt,a4paper]{article}
\usepackage[footnote,printonlyused]{acronym}
\usepackage{scrextend}
\deffootnote[1.0em]{3.2em}{10em}
{\textsuperscript{\thefootnotemark}\,\enskip}

\begin{document}
foo\footnote{foo: this footnotetext explaines what foo is}
bar\footnote{bar: this very very very very very very very long text explains in  two lines what bar is, it would be nice if this line is indented behind the colon, starting below the 'this'.}
\end{document}

Answer 2

You can use lockstep's answer to this question:

 \documentclass{article}

 \usepackage{scrextend}
 \deffootnote{0em}{1.6em}{\thefootnotemark.\enskip}

 \usepackage[english]{babel}
 \usepackage{blindtext}


 \begin{document}

 \blindtext\footnote{\blindtext}\\
 foo\footnote{foo: this footnotetext explaines what foo is}\\
 bar\footnote{bar: this very very very very very very very long text explains in  two lines what bar is, it would be nice if this line is indented behind the colon, starting below the 'this'}

   \end{document}

Answer 3

Too long for a comment: I tried to write something up that depends on the length of the descriptionlabel (if you want to call it that way). As i already mentioned in the comments, the result will look quite odd. I suggest to use a fixed indentation, that will make your article/report/book/... look more uniform.

\documentclass[draft,12pt,a4paper]{article}
\usepackage{showframe}
\usepackage{scrextend}
\deffootnote[1.0em]{3.2em}{10em}
{\textsuperscript{\thefootnotemark}\,\enskip}
\newlength{\desclngth}
\newlength{\colonlngth}
\newcommand{\myfootnote}[2]{\settowidth{\desclngth}{#1:}%
\begingroup%
\addtolength{\desclngth}{1em}%
\deffootnote[1.0em]{\desclngth}{10em}%
{\textsuperscript{{\thefootnotemark}}\,\enskip}%
#1\footnote{#1: #2}%
\endgroup%
}
\usepackage{blindtext}
\begin{document}
foo\footnote{foo: this footnotetext explaines what foo is}
bar\footnote{foobar: this very very very very very very very long text explains in  two lines what bar is, it would be nice if this line is indented behind the colon, starting below the 'this'}
\myfootnote{baz}{\blindtext}
\myfootnote{foobar}{\blindtext}
\end{document}

As you may notice, the indent doesn't really match, which is due to the different widths of the initial number (i think). But since the result look sooo odd, i didn't investigate further.

Answer 4

Here is a solution that defines an \explain command, that has two arguments: the text or word to be explained and the explanations. It creates a footnote with first argument in boldface (as in a dictionary), followed by the explanation. If the explanation is several lines long, subsequent lines are indented as if the word to be defined was a three letters word so as to have a consistent indent throughout the document.

It uses the enumitem environment, and more specifically its description* inline environment.

\documentclass[draft,12pt,a4paper]{article}

\usepackage[inline]{enumitem}

\makeatletter
\renewcommand\@makefntext[1]{%
\noindent\makebox[0.5em][l]{\@makefnmark}#1}
\makeatother

\setlength\footnotesep{2ex}
\newcommand\explain[2]{#1\footnote{%
\settowidth{\hangindent}{\textbf{foo}:\hspace{0.83em}\mbox{}}\hangafter = 1
\begin{description*}[mode=unboxed]%
\item[#1\mdseries:] #2
\end{description*}}%
}
\begin{document}
bar\footnote{this standard footnotetext explains what bar is.}
\explain{foo}{this footnotetext explains what foo is.}
\explain{long bar}{this very very very very very very very long text explains in two lines what bar is; this line is indented behind the position of a colon for a three letters word. }

\end{document}