From: CSBVAX::CSBVAX::MRGATE::"SMTP::CRVAX.SRI.COM::RELAY-INFO-VAX" 10-FEB-1989 20:02 To: MRGATE::"ARISIA::EVERHART" Subj: re: Keeping footnotes on one page Received: From KL.SRI.COM by CRVAX.SRI.COM with TCP; Fri, 10 FEB 89 07:52:04 PDT Received: from Venus.YCC.Yale.Edu by KL.SRI.COM with TCP; Fri, 10 Feb 89 07:47:52 PST Date: Fri, 10 Feb 89 10:50 EST From: "Jerry Leichter (LEICHTER-JERRY@CS.YALE.EDU)" Subject: re: Keeping footnotes on one page To: ram-ashwin@CS.YALE.EDU, INFO-VAX@KL.SRI.COM X-VMS-To: IN%"ram-ashwin@CS.YALE.EDU",INFOVAX I would like footnotes in my document not to be split over consecutive pages. In other words, I want the entire footnote to appear on the page on which it is cited. I tried two solutions: \footnote{\begin{minipage}{\textwidth} #1 \end{minipage}} This didn't work because although footnotes did not get split over pages, the footnote number appeared in the middle of the footnote instead of next to the first line of the footnote. This has no chance of working. Splitting of footnotes occurs much later than minipage manipulations and such. All this could do, even ignoring the problem with the placement of the number (which could be worked around), is discourage TeX from breaking the footnote - it won't forbid it. \footnote{\floatingpenalty=10000 #1} This did not seem to do anything; some footnotes were still broken over two pages. Any suggestions? Is there a penalty for splitting footnotes over pages that I can increase to its maximum value? I thought \floatingpenalty was it, but it didn't seem to do anything. Perhaps 10000 isn't enough? Under TeX's conventions, a penalty of 10000 is infinite. Increasing it fur- ther won't help. What is happening is that TeX is being faced with a choice among several alternatives, each with an "infinite" cost. It will then some- how chose one - it considers them all equally bad. That YOU don't happen to consider them all equally bad is another issue - TeX's model of the "quality" of a page is good but by no means perfect. There really is no way to ensure that footnotes aren't split, short of hand- tuning your pages (by forcing page breaks). Better, are you really sure you want that many footnotes, or footnotes that are that long? I tend to write a lot of footnotes myself - a quick look at my thesis reveals that one long chapter has 64 of them - but it's a habit I'm trying to control. As an alternative, I've defined a "note" environment for material that's not in the mainstream of the text, but is either too long or "not tangential enough" to go in a footnote. A note is indented on both sides and uses a smaller font size. Here's the definition if you want to try it: % % An environment for a "note": Smaller font, narrower margins. note* is the % same but leaves the font alone. An optional argument will be centered in % boldface over the note. Nested notes get even smaller fonts; a "note" % within a "note*" gets a doubly small font. Questionable; then again, so % are nested notes in general. % \def\jsl@sml{\small} \def\jsl@bgr{\normalsize} \def\note{\n@te\jsl@sml} \@namedef{note*}{\n@te\relax} \def\n@te#1{\par \begin{list}{}{\rightmargin\leftmargin #1\def\jsl@sml{\footnotesize}\def\jsl@bgr{\small}} \item \@ifnextchar [{\jsl@nthead}{}} \def\jsl@nthead[#1]{\noindent\hbox to\linewidth{\hfil{\bf #1}\hfil}% \nopagebreak\par} \def\endnote{\jsl@bgr\end{list}} \@namedef{endnote*}{\endnote} This definition has to go into a style file, or be preceeded by \makeatletter. (Also, this was one of my first major attempts at LaTeX hacking. It looks simple, but it's the end result of a long and painful round of learning. Looking back at it now, I can see better ways to do things. For example, \jsl@bgr probably isn't needed because of the way the nesting ended up working. I also know of some interaction problems when a sectional unit begins with a note ... one of these days, I may try to fix that. So...don't take this as holy writ!) -- Jerry