[comp.text.tex] writing footnotes without numbers

marke@cs.uwa.oz.au (Mark Ellison) (06/27/91)

Here is a function which writes a footnote without
a mark in either the main text or the footnote.
Some journals (eg Linguistic Inquiry) put acknowledgements
in an unnumbered first footnote. With this function
you can put them there.

I put the function in a style file in a standard
place for easy access and use.

-------------------<LaTeX Source Below>-------------------
% T Mark Ellison 26 Jun 1991
%
% This style file defines the command \nnfoottext
% which allows the user to at any time insert footnote
% text material without adding a footnote number
% to either the main page or the note.
%
% Sample Use:
%
%         .....
%         \begin{document}
%         .....
%         \nnfoottext{This is a witty and interesting
%         numberless footnote. Thank-you.}
%         .....
%         \end{document}
%
% This was originally developed for the acknowledgement
% notes similar to the style used by the journal
% Linguistic Inquiry. The code was adapted from the latex
% source.
%
\long\def\nnfoottext#1{\insert\footins{\footnotesize
    \interlinepenalty\interfootnotelinepenalty
    \splittopskip\footnotesep
    \splitmaxdepth \dp\strutbox \floatingpenalty \@MM
    \hsize\columnwidth \@parboxrestore
   \edef\@thefnmark{}
   \edef\@currentlabel{}\@makefntext
    {\rule{\z@}{\footnotesep}\ignorespaces
      #1\strut}}}
-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
T Mark Ellison      marke@cuscus.cs.uwa.oz.au    Department of Computer Science
                                                University of Western Australia
Never necklace an albatross.                               W.A. 6009, Australia

rig@eng.umd.edu (Ronald Greenberg) (06/28/91)

In article <marke.678003955@cuscus> marke@cs.uwa.oz.au (Mark Ellison) writes:
>
>Here is a function which writes a footnote without
>a mark in either the main text or the footnote.
>Some journals (eg Linguistic Inquiry) put acknowledgements
>in an unnumbered first footnote. With this function
>you can put them there.
>
>I put the function in a style file in a standard
>place for easy access and use.
>
>-------------------<LaTeX Source Below>-------------------
>% T Mark Ellison 26 Jun 1991
>%
>% This style file defines the command \nnfoottext
>% which allows the user to at any time insert footnote
>% text material without adding a footnote number
>% to either the main page or the note.

I used to prepare papers in this style; now I generally use \thanks
and \maketitle which gives you something like an asterisk or dagger in
the text and footnote.  In any case, there is a LaTeX method to get
your behavior without making up your own footnote function (in case
you later end up using a style that does footnotes a little
differently or something).

Just make the following definitions

\newcommand{\arabicifpos}[1]{\@arabicifpos{\@nameuse{c@#1}}}
\newcommand{\@arabicifpos}[1]{\ifnum #1>0 \number #1\fi}

\renewcommand{\thefootnote}{\arabicifpos{footnote}}

Then, you just do, e.g. \footnotetext[0]{stuff} whenever you want.
If, in fact, it is before any other footnotes as in the situation you
originally described, you don't need the "[0]".
--

Ronald I. Greenberg	(Ron)		rig@eng.umd.edu