I would like to build upon Heiko Oberdiek's threeparttable
solution here and ask if it is possible to keep the indentation for the numbered footnote items while flushing the items without anything in square brackets to the left, like so:
I'm not particular about how deep the indentation is; the superscript a might just as well be aligned with the two lines above it. I tried modifying the alignment with \renewcommand{\TPTnoteSettings}
but I am struggling to treat numbered and non-numbered items differently.
In case you'd like to play around with my table here, this is the code that incorporates Heiko Oberdiek's tip but where only the first line of a numbered footnote is indented:
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{threeparttable}
\usepackage{booktabs}
\begin{document}
\begin{center}
\begin{threeparttable}
\caption{flushleft}
\begin{tabular}{l c c c c}
\toprule
type & cyl & disp & hp & drat \\
\midrule
Ferrari & 6 & 160 & 110 & 3.9 \\
VW & 6 & 160 & 110 & 3.9 \\
Chevrolet & 4\tnote{a} & 108 & 93 & 3.85 \\
Tesla & 6 & 258 & 110 & 3.08 \\
Ford & 8 & 360 & 175 & 3.15 \\
\bottomrule
\end{tabular}
\begin{tablenotes}[flushleft]\footnotesize
\item \leavevmode\kern-\scriptspace\kern-\labelsep Some longer note that may span several rows below the table.
\item [a] A note that might as well span multiple rows despite being a footnote.
\end{tablenotes}
\end{threeparttable}
\end{center}
\end{document}