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I have a document that uses a lot of footnotes (avg. 15 per page, and 1 line of text per footnote in A5 paper). Unfortunately, this necessitates a lot of eye movement: readers must find the corresponding footnote, then find their place back in the text again. Frequently, readers must refer back to prior footnotes. I need to find something more efficient, that also doesn't take up much space.

I have tried every option in footmisc, but these only make insignificant formatting changes. I've tried using the margin features of tufte-latex and footmisc, but this runs into errors complaining about too many floats and not enough memory; the workarounds for this are insufficient given the large quantity of footnotes I'm dealing with.

What other options or adjustments can I try?

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  • 9
    "Don't use footnotes in your books, Don. JILL KNUTH, (1962)" :)
    – egreg
    Nov 7, 2011 at 1:00
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    Without any code examples nobody can help you with the compile errors. However, this question is not the right place to discuss your compilation errors with footmisc.
    – Marco
    Nov 7, 2011 at 1:05
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    In an A5 layout you will at most get 24 lines of text. Footnotes will take up 40% of the page. If you have so many footnotes you are using the wrong size paper.
    – Yiannis Lazarides
    Nov 7, 2011 at 1:24
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    Are your footnotes long. If not, seems like margin notes are the way to go. Have you had a look at the marginnote package?
    – Werner ♦
    Nov 7, 2011 at 1:27
  • If the note is important, then it should be part of the main text. If it is not important, then it should be deleted. If you are not sure, left as a footnote, or better, think twice if is a valuable information or not.
    – Fran
    Oct 10, 2019 at 22:29

2 Answers 2

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You can use end notes. Which basically are footnotes collected at the end of the chapter. It depends on how the footnotes are used.

Does the reader need to look up the information instantly? Then endnotes are not a good alternative. As you already suggested, margin notes can be used, instead.

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  • End notes would put the information too far away. By any chance is there some way to put the footnotes at the end of a paragraph (potentially in the middle of the page at times)?
    – Village
    Nov 8, 2011 at 9:30
  • That's possible. You don't have to put the end notes at the end of the book or chapter. You can put them anywhere (e.g. after each paragraph).
    – Marco
    Nov 8, 2011 at 13:50
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Try using margin-notes by employing the xcolor, marginfix and the perpage packages:

\usepackage{perpage}
%%%%% Randnoten mit marginfix und perpage
\newcounter{Rnnr}
\MakePerPage{Rnnr}% Zähler beginnt neu auffe nächste Seite, Paket
                  % perpage, es gibt noch zref-perpage
\renewcommand{\theRnnr}{\alph{Rnnr}}
\newcommand{\Anm}[1]{%
  \stepcounter{Rnnr}%Randnotennummer um eins erhöhen
  \textcolor{red}{\textsuperscript{\textit{\theRnnr}}}% Anker im Text
   \marginpar{% Randnotiz
    \RaggedRight% Flattersatz
    \textcolor{red}{\sffamily{\textsuperscript{\theRnnr}}}% Randnotennummer
    \scriptsize% kleine Schrift
    \textcolor{red}{#1}}}%Randnotentext

Instead of \footnote try \Anm. This small hack gives you margin notes "numbered" with small roman letters.

Don't mind my German comments, if you need help, I will translate them for you.

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