How can I make a footnote to a footnote? E.g.,
Playfair's axiom\footnote{so called in honor of mathematician John Playfair, etc, etc., but was actually discovered by Proclus\footnote{Greek mathematician, etc, etc.}}
28
30
Playfair's axiom\footnote{%
so called in honor of mathematician John Playfair, etc, etc.,
but was actually discovered by Proclus\footnotemark}
\footnotetext{Greek mathematician, etc, etc.}
But I'd advise against doing this.
As a bonus, here's an example of how you can really mess with footnotes.
\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
\footnotetext[4]{We have to go back to the future, Marty!}
Foo\footnote{The footnote to this sentence is true\footnotemark}
\footnotetext{The footnote to this sentence is false\footnotemark[1]}
more body text\footnotetext[42]{This footnote doesn't appear in the main text}
And more body text\footnote{And we're back to the normal numbering.}
But look where this footnote text ends up!\footnotemark
\end{document}
A few points.
- The footnotes appear in the order the
\footnotemarks appear in the text. - Optional arguments to both
\footnotemarkand\footnotetextgive you control over what number actually appears. (Useful for repeating a footnote if it is relevant again later. - Everything here should work perfectly with
\labeland\ref
-
The same trick allows you do get footnotes in minipages. And there it is more useful... – Seamus Jul 15 '11 at 23:49
-
1Perfect, I didn't know about these footnotemark and footnotetext commands. Thank you. I promise not to overuse it ;) – Bruno Stonek Jul 15 '11 at 23:51
-
1I'm not a big fan of footnotes in general. If it's important enough to mention, it's important enough for the main text. Rule of thumb: never have more footnotes than pages. But that's just me... – Seamus Jul 15 '11 at 23:53
-
2Here is more information on
\footnotemark[<num>]and\footnotetext[<num>]{<text>}, since it actually allows overriding of the mark used in the footnote. – Werner Jul 15 '11 at 23:54 -
@Werner thanks for that! I'll update my answer into a proper "here's how footnotes work" answer tomorrow. (it's 1am here) – Seamus Jul 15 '11 at 23:59
13
Use the bigfoot package (as I suggested in the above comment). E.g.:
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{bigfoot}
\DeclareNewFootnote{Default}
\DeclareNewFootnote{B}[alph]
\MakeSortedPerPage{B}% perhaps also useful to know about
\begin{document}
\verb+bigfoot+%
\footnote{Available on CTAN.} %
improves \LaTeX's%
\footnoteB{Widely known to be less than ideal.} %
footnoting abilities. \verb+bigfoot+%
\footnote{Available on CTAN.} %
improves \LaTeX's%
\footnoteB{Widely known to be less than ideal.\footnote{See also over
here: one important limitation is that ``Higher-placed footnotes
can't be anchored in inferior ones'' (see \verb+bigfoot.sty+).}} %
footnoting abilities.
\end{document}
\footnotemarkand\footnotetexttrickery should do it, but like @Seamus I would do it. – Martin Scharrer♦ Jul 15 '11 at 23:46bigfootdoes this (example given in the manual). It is not a normal need, but critical editions which themselves include a scholarly apparatus may make such a situation necessary. – jon Nov 27 '11 at 4:32