reledmac: setcounter does not affect footnote counting

Question

I'm using reledmac for an edition project where the publisher wants me to use standard footnotes with alphabetical footnote marks for the critical notes. Therefore, I need to reset thefootnoteA when it passes over 25. Reledmac, however, does not accept \setcounter for normal footnotes after \begin{document}.

    \documentclass{book}
    \usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
    \usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
    \usepackage{lmodern}

    \usepackage[series={A,B,C},nocritical,noend,noeledsec,noledgroup]{reledmac}
    \usepackage{reledpar}


    \renewcommand*{\thefootnoteA}{\alph{footnoteA}}
    \newcommand{\VarL}[3]{%     % 1 = Type; 2 = Var; 3 = Sig
        \ifnum\value{footnoteA}>11\setcounter{footnoteA}{7}\fi
        \textsuperscript{\thefootnoteA/}\footnoteA{\textit{#1} #2 \textit{#3}}%
        }
    \setcounter{footnoteA}{11} % <== Here, the setcounter is accepted


    \begin{document}

    \begin{pages}
        \begin{Leftside}
            \beginnumbering
                \pstart
    De hominis\VarL{}{Testnote 1}{} ergo anima\VarL{}{Testnote 2}{} nobis certamen est.
                \pend
            \endnumbering
        \end{Leftside}
        \begin{Rightside}
            \beginnumbering
                \pstart
    Nostre different donc est de l'ame de l'homme.
                \pend
            \endnumbering
        \end{Rightside}
    \end{pages} 
    \Pages

    \end{document}

Any thoughts on how to solve this?

Thanks in advance, Uza

Answer 1

That is linked to the fact of using parallel typesetting. When you make normal typesetting, the text is typeset as soon it is read. But with parallel typesetting, the left text is read in one block, and the right text is read in an other block, and, then, the left and right text are typeset in alternance.

So, if we use normal mechanism to increase footnote counter, we can have trouble if we have footnote in both left and right side. For example, we could get

• left page : footnote 1, 2, 3
• right page : footnote 5, 6, 7
• left page : footnote 4
• right page : footnote 8

Which is unnatural for reader.

That why reledmac include a mechanism which save footnote counter in the .aux file. This mechanism work well, except when you change the footnote number intot the fly as in your case, or with the \PerPage mechanism.

In this case, you need to need to work directly with the reledpar internal counter : footnoteA@typeset. Furthermore, you need to do it when the footnote are typeset, not when they are read. So you need to patch \vbfnoteX reledmac macro.

So here the final code.

\documentclass{book}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{lmodern}

\usepackage[series={A,B,C},nocritical,noend,noeledsec,noledgroup]{reledmac}
\usepackage{reledpar}

\renewcommand*{\thefootnoteA}{(\arabic{footnoteA})}
\newcommand{\VarL}[3]{%     % 1 = Type; 2 = Var; 3 = Sig
  \footnoteA{\textit{#1} #2 \textit{#3}}%
    }

\setcounter{footnoteA}{11} % 
\pretocmd{\vbfnoteX}{%
  \ifnum\value{footnoteA@typeset}>11%
    \setcounter{footnoteA@typeset}{7}%
  \fi
}{}{}
\begin{document}
\begin{pages}
    \begin{Leftside}
        \beginnumbering
            \pstart
De hominis\VarL{}{Testnote 1}{} ergo anima\VarL{}{Testnote 2}{} nobis certamen est.
            \pend
        \endnumbering
    \end{Leftside}
    \begin{Rightside}
        \beginnumbering
            \pstart
Nostre different donc est de l'ame de l'homme.
            \pend
        \endnumbering
    \end{Rightside}
\end{pages}
\Pages

\end{document}