mix number and symbols on thanks marks

Question

The list of authors of a paper have affiliation information as well as notes for equal contributions and who is the corresponding author. In the field of biomedical sciences, the affiliation uses numbers, while the other notes use symbols. Something that looks like this:

Author Foo^{1, *}, Author Bar^{2, *}, Author Baz², Author Qux^1,†

¹: Address of Institution A
²: Address of Institution B
^*: These authors have contributed equally
^†: Corresponding author: email@address

I'm using the memoir document class. Ideally, I would create a map of names to symbols and use the names on the list of authors. Reading the memoir manual I only see the \thanksmark command. That's fine, I can work with that:

\author{
  Foo\thanks{Address of institution A}\thanks{These authors have contributed equally},
  Bar\thanks{Address of institution B},thanksmark{1},
  Baz\thanksmark{3},
  Qux\thanksmark{1},\thanks{Corresponding author: email@address}
}

However, that uses \fnsymbol for all the symbols, not the mix of numbers and symbols I need. I also see that I can specify a command with \thanksmarkseries but I'm unable to create a new command that I can use with it. I wouldn't even mind having a hardcoded sequence, but I just can't figure out the right incantation:

# "pseudo" code that I know does not work
\newcommand*{\authorsymbols}[1]{\ifnum#1=2*\elifnum#1=4\dagger\else\@arabic{\numexpr#1\relax}\fi}
\thanksmarkseries{authorsymbols}

Answer 1

There are two things that makes this a little more difficult. Not only do you want to mix them, but you may be interested in a specific layout of the \thanks notes in the footnote; perhaps all the affiliations (numbers) first and then the rest (symbols).

I suggest inserting the \thanks notes with \author manually so you can arrange them in whichever way you want. You can even give them new names so it makes complete sense when you add attributions to their names. Then, as a second, separate, set of instruction, you list the \thanks order as regular \footnotetext[<num>]. Additionally, you specify a symbol designation using \ifcase...\fi that includes the mixture that you want.

\documentclass{memoir}

\makeatletter
\newcommand{\myfnsymbol}[1]{%
  \expandafter\@myfnsymbol\csname c@#1\endcsname
}
% Mapping of how the \thanks symbols will be interpreted sequentially
\newcommand{\@myfnsymbol}[1]{%
  \ifcase #1
    % 0
  \or 1% 1
  \or 2% 2
  \or \TextOrMath{\textasteriskcentered}{*}% 3
  \or \TextOrMath{\textdagger}{\dagger}% 4
  \fi
}
% Just to make things explicit in the code what it means
\newcommand{\affiliationA}{\@myfnsymbol{1}}
\newcommand{\affiliationB}{\@myfnsymbol{2}}
\newcommand{\equalcontributor}{\@myfnsymbol{3}}
\newcommand{\correspondingA}{\@myfnsymbol{4}}
\makeatother

\title{A title}

\author{
  Author Foo\textsuperscript{\affiliationA,\equalcontributor},
  Author Bar\textsuperscript{\affiliationB,\equalcontributor},
  Author Baz\textsuperscript{\affiliationB},
  Author Qux\textsuperscript{\affiliationA,\correspondingA}
}

\setlength{\textheight}{15\baselineskip}% Just for this example

\begin{document}


% Thanks notes for title uses \myfnsymbol
\renewcommand{\thefootnote}{\myfnsymbol{footnote}}
\maketitle
% Layout the \thanks notes in the order you want
\footnotetext[1]{Address of Institute A}%
\footnotetext[2]{Address of Institute B}%
\footnotetext[3]{These authors contributed equally}%
\footnotetext[4]{Corresponding author: email@address}%

\setcounter{footnote}{0}% Restart footnote counter
% Footnotes for rest of document uses \fnsymbol (or whatever you choose)
\renewcommand{\thefootnote}{\fnsymbol{footnote}}

% Rest of your document here

\end{document}