LaTeX: Footnote symbols instead of numbers

[Robert A. Luke]

I am trying to use footnote symbols (like asterisks and daggers)
instead of the normal numbers, but am not having much luck. I tried
to use \fnsymbol{footnote} (page 175 of Leslie Lamport's book)
as the "num" argument to \footnote[num]{text} (on page 156), but
my version of LaTeX complained about needing a number for "num". And,
sure enough, Lamport says that "num" must be a positive integer.

AAARRRRRRRGGGHHHHHH!!!

Does anybody know how to get asterisks and daggers for footnotes
instead of numbers? I'd sure appreciate any help you can give me.

Thanks in advance.

-Robert
--
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Robert Luke lu...@aerospace.aero.org
The Aerospace Corporation lu...@uservx.plk.af.mil
USAF Phillips Lab

[Stefan Gerberding]

In article <1992Aug3.2...@aero.org>, lu...@aero.org (Robert A. Luke) writes:
|>
|> I am trying to use footnote symbols (like asterisks and daggers)
|> instead of the normal numbers, but am not having much luck. I tried
|> to use \fnsymbol{footnote} (page 175 of Leslie Lamport's book)
|> as the "num" argument to \footnote[num]{text} (on page 156), but
|> my version of LaTeX complained about needing a number for "num". And,
|> sure enough, Lamport says that "num" must be a positive integer.
|>
|> AAARRRRRRRGGGHHHHHH!!!
|>
|> Does anybody know how to get asterisks and daggers for footnotes
|> instead of numbers? I'd sure appreciate any help you can give me.
|>
|> Thanks in advance.

The following solution is from Helmut Kopka's book `LaTeX. Eine Einfuehrung':

\renewcommand{\thefootnote}{\fnsymbol{footnote}}

Instead of \fnsymbol you may also use one of \arabic (the original setting),
\roman, \Roman, \alph or \Alph. To actually generate the footnote use

\footnote[num]{text}

where num corresponds to the following symbols if \fnsymbol has been used:
1 \ast 5 \P 9 \ddag\ddag
2 \dag 6 \parallel
3 \ddag 7 \ast\ast
4 \S 8 \dag\dag

To restore \trhefootnote

\renewcommand{\thefootnote}{\arabic{footnote}}

|> Thanks in advance.

Hope that helps,
Stefan.
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( Stefan Gerberding )
) Informatik, FB Inferenzsysteme (
( Technische Hochschule Darmstadt (THD) )
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[Robert A. Luke]

Hi-

Many thanks to everybody who sent help. Here is a summary of
what they said:

1. Use the following line either before or after the \begin{document}
line:

\renewcommand{\thefootnote}{\fnsymbol{footnote}}

or

\def\thefootnote{\fnsymbol{footnote}}

in the preamble.

2. Georgios Dimitriadis at the Univ of Crete-Heraklion said that you
can use your own sequence of symbols by defining

\def\mysumbols#1{\@mysumbols{\@nameuse{c@#1}}}
\def\@mysymbols#1{\ifcase#1\or a\or b\or c\or d\else\@ctrerr\fi}

Then you can say

\def\thefootnote{\mysymbols{footnote}}

where in the above case 'mysymbols' are a,b,c and d but you can
insert whatever you like.

There were several others, but I stopped when the \renewcommand in
number 1 above worked.

Stefan Gerberding's posting also looked good and I'm going to try it.

Thanks again for the help.

--Robert