# Why are the Spaces Between Footnotes So Large? (tcolorbox)

I am using tcolorbox to create numberless footnotes to put math definitions at the bottom of the page. The point is that they're supposed to be noticeable and readable, but not so large as to take up half of the page, which is what they are doing now because there is so much space.

I am not sure which spacing settings are the problem: those with enumerate, the standard LateX spacing for the body, the standard footnote spacing settings, or the tcolorbox settings.

Look how big the space between the box and the next footnote is without any breaks; it is of course even worse between two boxes. I have no problem with automatic spacing for text/boxes in the body, but 1 inch breaks in the footnotes are somewhat ridiculous.

Can someone help me make these footnotes tighter? Thank you so much!

MWE:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{amsfonts}
\usepackage{amssymb}
\usepackage{amsthm}
\usepackage{calrsfs}
\usepackage{mathrsfs}
\usepackage{mathtools}
\usepackage{parskip}
\usepackage{tcolorbox}
\usepackage{graphicx}

\tcbuselibrary{breakable}

\newtcolorbox{myquote}{colback=yellow!20!white,colframe=yellow!75!black,grow to right by=-10mm,grow to left by=-10mm,boxsep=0pt,breakable}
\makeatletter

\newcommand{\blockquote}[1]{  \begin{myquote}  #1  \end{myquote}  }

\newcommand\blfootnote[1]{%
\begingroup
\renewcommand\thefootnote{}\footnote{ \begin{myquote} #1 \end{myquote}}%
\endgroup
}

\begin{document}

Furthermore, as per the usual assumptions,
\nobreakdash
\blfootnote{usual assumptions - \begin{enumerate} \item The filtration is complete. \item The filtration is right-continuous.\end{enumerate}}
\nobreakdash
we assume that our filtration is complete, i.e. that $\mathcal{F}=\mathcal{F}^{\mathbb{P}}$  (that the sigma-algebra $\mathcal{F}$ is complete
\nobreakdash
\blfootnote{\textbf{\textit{complete}} $\sigma-$algebra with respect to measure $\mathbb{P}$ - a $\sigma-$algebra which contains \textit{all} $\mathbb{P}-$null sets, i.e. all sets $A$ such that $\mathbb{P}(A)=0$, and all sets $B$ such that $B \subset A$ and $\mathbb{P}(A)=0$.}
\nobreakdash
with respect to the probability measure $\mathbb{P}$), and that $\mathcal{F}_{t_0}$ contains all sets of measure zero in $\mathcal{F}$.

We also impose the second of the two usual assumptions: that the filtration $(\mathcal{F}_t)_{t \in \mathbb{T}}$ is right-continuous, in other words that:

\blockquote{$$\mathcal{F}_t=\mathcal{F}_{t^+}:=\bigcap\limits_{u>t}\mathcal{F_u}\quad \text{for all times }t$$}

Look how big the space between the box and the next footnote is without any breaks; it is of course even worse between two boxes. I have no problem with automatic spacing for text/boxes in the body, but 1 inch breaks in the footnotes are somewhat ridiculous.

\section[The Pathwise Integral]{The Pathwise Integral: The Naive Approach}

Here we essentially use normal integration for deterministic functions\footnote{In what follows, we assume the reader is familiar with Lebesgue-Stieltjes integration for (deterministic) Borel-measurable real-valued functions.} to define "stochastic" integrals on a path-by-path basis.

\end{document}


What the MWE looks like on my computer with TexStudio and MacTex:

• Try beforeafter skip=0pt, but also note that you are explicitly putting your boxes in new paragraphs. – jon May 22 '16 at 18:16
• I guess the question is whether you want to be tweaking the vertical space manually or do something different (if so, what?). Also, I can't help but point out that unnumbered 'footnotes' are unnecessarily obfuscating. There are better choices: regular footnotes, side captions, endnotes. How on earth should someone guess that they should look to the bottom of the page to learn what the 'usual assumptions' are? (And the choice of 'usual assumptions' here is doubly ironic since the usual assumption is that footnoted text is usually signalled in a clear, but understated way: viz, with a ¹.) – jon May 22 '16 at 18:27
• @jon about the putting into new paragraphs -- that's not the problem -- the output looks the same in the original code, which isn't formatted like that, but I thought this way would be more legible. – Chill2Macht May 22 '16 at 19:09
• what is the difference between a footnote and an endnote? what is a side caption? how do you do that? also I wouldn't mind having the numbers per se, but I don't know how to put them inside of the box, and I also would like to have a different numbering system for footnotes pertaining to mathematical definitions compared to those which are for regular comments. Also the reason why the definitions are in footnotes is because it is assumed most people reading already know this, and even if they don't, I didn't want the definitions to interrupt the flow if possible – Chill2Macht May 22 '16 at 19:11
• For what I've called side captions, see this answer. All I meant is to embed the boxes into the text near where they should appear. Endnotes appear after the main text, while footnotes appear at the foot of the page. The bigfoot package allows you to create multiple sets of footnotes. If the footnote boxes are (generally) common knowledge, then I wonder if it is wise to highlight them so strongly. Ancillary or subsidiary material probably shouldn't stand out more than the main text because then your eyes are drawn to things in the "wrong" order. – jon May 22 '16 at 19:22

Notwithstanding my comments above about whether doing this is desirable, if I were to need this, I'd make the following changes so as to retain some level of manual control over the output:

\newtcolorbox{myquote}[1][10]{colback=yellow!20!white, colframe=yellow!75!black, grow to right by=-10mm,grow to left by=-10mm,boxsep=0pt,breakable,
% this is the change: set beforeafter skip to 10pt by default
beforeafter skip=#1pt
}


and

\newcommand\blfootnote[2][-6pt]{%
\begingroup
\renewcommand\thefootnote{}\footnote{%
% optional argument currently set to "-6pt"
\vspace*{#1pt}
\begin{myquote}
#2
\end{myquote}}%
\endgroup
}


And then use:

\blfootnote[-10]{...text...}% sets the negative vskip to -10pt for this "footnote"


Thus, here's what happens by default:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{amsfonts}
\usepackage{amssymb}
\usepackage{amsthm}
\usepackage{calrsfs}
\usepackage{mathrsfs}
\usepackage{mathtools}
\usepackage{parskip}
\usepackage{tcolorbox}
\usepackage{graphicx}

\tcbuselibrary{breakable}

\newtcolorbox{myquote}[1][10]{colback=yellow!20!white,colframe=yellow!75!black,grow to right by=-10mm,grow to left by=-10mm,boxsep=0pt, breakable,
beforeafter skip=#1pt
}

\newcommand{\blockquote}[1]{  \begin{myquote}  #1  \end{myquote}  }

\newcommand\blfootnote[2][-6]{%
\begingroup
\renewcommand\thefootnote{}%
\footnote{%
\vspace*{#1pt}
\begin{myquote}[0]
#2
\end{myquote}}%
\endgroup
}

\begin{document}

Furthermore, as per the usual assumptions,
\nobreakdash
\blfootnote{usual assumptions - \begin{enumerate} \item The filtration is complete. \item The filtration is right-continuous.\end{enumerate}}
\nobreakdash
we assume that our filtration is complete, i.e. that $\mathcal{F}=\mathcal{F}^{\mathbb{P}}$  (that the sigma-algebra $\mathcal{F}$ is complete
\nobreakdash
\blfootnote{\textbf{\textit{complete}} $\sigma-$algebra with respect to measure $\mathbb{P}$ - a $\sigma-$algebra which contains \textit{all} $\mathbb{P}-$null sets, i.e. all sets $A$ such that $\mathbb{P}(A)=0$, and all sets $B$ such that $B \subset A$ and $\mathbb{P}(A)=0$.}
\nobreakdash
with respect to the probability measure $\mathbb{P}$), and that $\mathcal{F}_{t_0}$ contains all sets of measure zero in $\mathcal{F}$.

We also impose the second of the two usual assumptions: that the filtration $(\mathcal{F}_t)_{t \in \mathbb{T}}$ is right-continuous, in other words that:

\blockquote{$$\mathcal{F}_t=\mathcal{F}_{t^+}:=\bigcap\limits_{u>t}\mathcal{F_u}\quad \text{for all times }t$$}

Look how big the space between the box and the next footnote is without any breaks; it is of course even worse between two boxes. I have no problem with automatic spacing for text/boxes in the body, but 1 inch breaks in the footnotes are somewhat ridiculous.

\section[The Pathwise Integral]{The Pathwise Integral: The Naive Approach}

Here we essentially use normal integration for deterministic functions\footnote{In what follows, we assume the reader is familiar with Lebesgue-Stieltjes integration for (deterministic) Borel-measurable real-valued functions.} to define stochastic'' integrals on a path-by-path basis.

\end{document}

• Hmm, I accidentally make this CW.... – jon May 22 '16 at 19:11
• This works perfectly!!! Thank you so much! I really appreciate it! – Chill2Macht May 22 '16 at 20:14
• @William -- glad it works! – jon May 22 '16 at 20:41