Ytdyklly

The standard LaTeX footnote behavior is to mark footnotes using superscript numbers. I can't use that, since all of my citations are superscript numbers. What I'd like is for my footnotes to be marked with symbols, and for the set of symbols to reset on each page (eg the first footnote on a page should always be marked with *). To make this happen I added the following to one of my .sty files:

renewcommand*{thefootnote}{fnsymbol{footnote}}

usepackage{perpage}

MakePerPage{footnote}

However, these lines break my build. When I run the make command and my makefile gets to the pdflatex step, every footnote after the 7th one now raises an error of the form:

! LaTeX Error: Counter too large.



See the LaTeX manual or LaTeX Companion for explanation.

Type  H <return>  for immediate help.

 ...



l.502 ... the topic of enhanced samplingfootnote{

                                                  Technically, Kahn et al., ...

If I comment out those lines, everything builds just fine, though of course then the footnotes are wrong. If I comment out just the MakePerPage{footnote}, then errors don't begin until after the 8th footnote. Either way, it seems like the MakePerPage{footnote} directive is being ignored, and that LaTeX is running out of footnote symbols.

I've used the above approach to get symbol footnotes in previous projects. The difference seems to be that before I was writing/building my docs using Texpad, whereas now I have a manual makefile build. So obviously there's something wrong with/missing from my makefile. Here's what the contents of the makefile look like:

fname=main

${fname}.pdf: ${fname}.tex 

    thesis_header.tex 

    abstract/abstract.tex 

    committee/committee.tex 

    acknowledgments/acknowledgments.tex 

    thesis_intro/thesis_intro.tex 

    bib/thesis_intro.bib 

    eces_chapter/error_control_of_enhanced_sampling.tex 

    bib/error_control_of_enhanced_sampling.bib 

    conclusion_chapter/conclusion_chapter.tex

    if [ -e ${fname}.aux ]; 

    then 

    rm ${fname}.aux; 

    fi;

    pdflatex ${fname}

    bibtex ${fname}

    bibtex ${fname}1-blx

    bibtex ${fname}2-blx

    # Add more if you have more chapters

    pdflatex ${fname}

    pdflatex ${fname}

    cp ${fname}.pdf PhD_Thesis.pdf

    open PhD_Thesis.pdf

clean:

    ...

open:

    open ${fname}.pdf

edit:

    open ${fname}.tex

All of the footnote errors occur during the first call to pdflatex. At the end of that first call to pdflatex, an (incomplete) pdf is produced, and the build halts with another error message:

make: *** [main.pdf] Error 1

This project is a PhD thesis, so I'm working off a template (written by another student a few years ago) that meets my school/library's formatting requirements (basically, some weird wide margins + the output has to be PDF/A). I didn't write the makefile, nor do I particularly understand it, I just substituted the .tex/.bib filenames with my own. The makefile doesn't resemble other example LaTeX makefile's that I was able to find on the internet, so I'm at a loss as how to fix it. Anyone familiar enough with the perpage package and/or similar footnote issues who can point me in the right direction?

If you want more details, the entire set of sources for my thesis are in a public repo here.

The problem has nothing to do with the make file. It is caused by the fact that LaTeX processes the input past the end of a page (for example, up to the end of the current paragraph) before it knows there is a page full of text, so the on the first pass through the document you have already processed some footnotes that will eventually end up on page 2 before makeperpage "knows" they are not all on page 1.

makeperpage works fine with numbered footnotes, because it is very unlikely to run out of numbers during the first pass through the document!

During the first pass, makeperpage remembers where the page breaks actually were, and uses that information to produce the correct footnote symbols on the second pass.

A brute force way to fix this is just to turn the error message into a warning. Insert the following into the preamble of your .tex input file, before begin{document}:

makeatletter

gdef@ctrerr{%

  @latex@warning{Counter too large}}

makeatother

The "standard" version of LaTeX uses @latex@error not @latex@warning here.

the expected behaviour is to get an error on the 10th, some code you have not shown is presumably using two footnotes somewhere.

documentclass{article}



renewcommand*{thefootnote}{fnsymbol{footnote}}

usepackage{perpage}

MakePerPage{footnote}



begin{document}



1footnote{zz}

2footnote{zz}

3footnote{zz}

4footnote{zz}

5footnote{zz}

6footnote{zz}

7footnote{zz}

8footnote{zz}

9footnote{zz}

10footnote{zz}

11footnote{zz}



end{document}

produces

! LaTeX Error: Counter too large.



See the LaTeX manual or LaTeX Companion for explanation.

Type  H <return>  for immediate help.

 ...                                              



l.18 10footnote{

                 zz}

?

However fnsymbol is a trivial macro that can easily be extended, the default definition is

def@fnsymbol#1{%

   ifcase#1or TextOrMathtextasteriskcentered *or

   TextOrMath textdagger daggeror

   TextOrMath textdaggerdbl ddagger or

   TextOrMath textsection  mathsectionor

   TextOrMath textparagraph mathparagraphor

   TextOrMath textbardbl |or

   TextOrMath {textasteriskcenteredtextasteriskcentered}{**}or

   TextOrMath {textdaggertextdagger}{daggerdagger}or

   TextOrMath {textdaggerdbltextdaggerdbl}{ddaggerddagger}else

   @ctrerr fi

}%

so you could use

documentclass{article}



renewcommand*{thefootnote}{fnsymbol{footnote}}

usepackage{perpage}

MakePerPage{footnote}



makeatletter

def@fnsymbol#1{%

   ifcase#1or

   TextOrMathtextasteriskcentered *or

   TextOrMath textdagger daggeror

   TextOrMath textdaggerdbl ddagger or

   TextOrMath textsection  mathsectionor

   TextOrMath textparagraph mathparagraphor

   TextOrMath textbardbl |or

   TextOrMath {textasteriskcenteredtextasteriskcentered}{**}or

   TextOrMath {textdaggertextdagger}{daggerdagger}or

   TextOrMath {textdaggerdbltextdaggerdbl}{ddaggerddagger}or

   TextOrMath {textsectiontextsection}{mathsectionmathsection}or

   TextOrMath {textbardbltextbardbl}{||}else

   @ctrerr fi

}%

makeatother



begin{document}



1footnote{zz}

2footnote{zz}

3footnote{zz}

4footnote{zz}

5footnote{zz}

6footnote{zz}

7footnote{zz}

8footnote{zz}

9footnote{zz}

10footnote{zz}

11footnote{zz}



end{document}