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TL;DR. I want to have certain footnotes (but not all) set in a two-column format. I don't mind managing this semi-manually (e.g. making sure only one type of note appears on a page).

I have a long document, and in one section, I have a whole string of very short footnotes (currently 12; they are short URLs), which mostly fall on the same page. This obviously leaves a very tall and odd looking footer on the page. I would like to have the footnotes grouped into columns for this page/area only (as I have long footnotes elsewhere which need to take the full width).

All the related questions I have been able to find relate to setting footnotes in columns for the whole document (e.g. Split LaTeX footnotes into two columns, dblfnote, etc.), or handling footnotes in two-column documents, which is not what I'm looking for.

I eventually came up with the following attempt using manyfoot to set certain notes in "paragraph" format and then put them in boxes to look like they are in columns, which gets close. I set \hangindent to try to align the second line of notes with the first, but this either works for single or double-digit footnotes (which have different widths) but not both. It also doesn't seem like the "proper" solution to this problem.

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage[para]{manyfoot}

% Set up a footnote style which runs all footnotes together in one paragraph.
\SetFootnoteHook{\hangindent=1.1em} % Amount chosen to match double-digit footnotes
\newfootnote[para]{X}
\newcommand{\footnoteXX}{\stepcounter{footnote}\Footnotemark\thefootnote \FootnotetextX{\thefootnote}}
\newcommand{\footnoteX}[1]{\footnoteXX{\makebox[0.4\textwidth][l]{#1}}}

\begin{document}

\setcounter{footnote}{5} % Simulate being part-way through the document.

Hello,\footnoteX{AAA} I\footnoteX{BBB} have lots\footnoteX{CCC} of footnotes\footnoteX{DDD} to mention\footnoteX{EEE} on\footnoteX{FFF} a\footnoteX{GGG} single\footnoteX{HHH} page\footnoteX{III}.

\end{document}

This answer to Short footnotes in columns uses the same approach, with cleverer calculation of the box widths, but the same issue.


Alternative attempt: In a MWE, this answer gives the output I want. However, I get some conflicts when I add reledmac to my actual document (which I can fix), and it also seems to have affected other spacing around footnote marks (and maybe other things?). I am paranoid about "small" changes like this which are hard to spot, so I am put off this solution, in favour of one which doesn't affect the rest of the document, if possible.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{reledmac}
\arrangementX[A]{twocol}
\begin{document}
This is\footnoteA{Left side footnote} a dummy text. Let us find out\footnoteA{Second left side footnote} if it worked well \footnoteA{Right side footnote} or not\footnoteA{Second right side footnote}.
\end{document}
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  • Incidentally, regarding the "alternative attempt", if anyone can suggest a way to tell what effect adding a new package had on the document, I would be very interested.
    – Ben
    Mar 26, 2018 at 12:18

1 Answer 1

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This solution also puts \fnmark into a constant width box. It uses the width of \footnotemark[22] (8.47pt).

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage[para]{manyfoot}

% Set up a footnote style which runs all footnotes together in one paragraph.
%\SetFootnoteHook{\hangindent=\parindent}% constant indentation for every line
\SetFootnoteHook{\parindent=0pt}
\newfootnote[para]{X}
\newcommand{\footnoteXX}{\stepcounter{footnote}\Footnotemark\thefootnote \FootnotetextX{\makebox[8.5pt][r]{\thefootnote}}}
\newcommand{\footnoteX}[1]{\footnoteXX{\makebox[0.4\textwidth][l]{#1}}}

\begin{document}

\setcounter{footnote}{5} % Simulate being part-way through the document.

Hello,\footnoteX{AAA} I\footnoteX{BBB} have lots\footnoteX{CCC} of footnotes\footnoteX{DDD} to mention\footnoteX{EEE} on\footnoteX{FFF} a\footnoteX{GGG} single\footnoteX{HHH} page\footnoteX{III}.

\end{document}

demo

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  • Ah, I think this is just what I was looking for. I was so close, and yet so far. Thanks.
    – Ben
    Mar 26, 2018 at 14:34

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