The usage of \alph
instead of \arabic
is no documented feature and only looking into tcolorbox.sty
gives some insight about the proceedings in the package:
The counter used in tcolorbox
boxes for footnotes is not footnote
but mpfootnote
(where mp
is short for minipage) and \thempfootnote
must be changed accordingly.
By default, in latex.ltx
, \thempfootnote
comes down to \alph{mpfootnote}
effectively, i.e. using lower case letters for 'numbering' the footnotes, so the effect is the 'fault' of the LaTeX core itself.
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tcolorbox}
\begin{document}
\begin{tcolorbox}
\renewcommand{\thempfootnote}{\arabic{mpfootnote}}
Some footnotes\footnote{Test} should be represented by an arabic number\footnote{Test}
\end{tcolorbox}
\begin{tcolorbox}
Some footnotes\footnote{Test} should be represented by a letter\footnote{Test}
\end{tcolorbox}
\end{document}
Here's a version with code=
key and definition of a special box for arabic footnotes:
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tcolorbox}
\newtcolorbox{footnotebox}[1][]{code={\renewcommand{\thempfootnote}{\arabic{mpfootnote}}},#1}
\begin{document}
\begin{footnotebox}
Some footnotes\footnote{Test} are represented by an arabic number\footnote{Test}
\end{footnotebox}
\begin{tcolorbox}
Some footnotes\footnote{Test} should be represented by a letter\footnote{Test}
\end{tcolorbox}
\end{document}