UK TeX FAQ -- question label footnpp

### Footnotes numbered “per page”

The obvious solution is to make the footnote number reset whenever the page number is stepped, using the LaTeX internal mechanism. Sadly, the place in the document where the page number is stepped is unpredictable, not (“tidily”) at the end of the printed page; so changing the footnote number only ever works by ‘luck’.

As a result, resetting footnotes is inevitably a complicated process, using labels of some sort. It’s nevertheless important, given the common requirement for footnotes marked by symbols (with painfully small symbol sets). There are four packages that manage it, one way or another.

The perpage package provides a general mechanism for resetting counters per page, so can obviously be used for this task. The interface is pretty simple: `\``MakePerPage{footnote}` will do the job. If you want to restart the counter at something other than 1 (for example to avoid something in the LaTeX footnote symbol list), you can use: `\``MakePerPage[2]{footnote}`. It’s a first-rate package, small and efficient.

The zref package provides the same facilities with its `perpage` module, which defines a command `\``zmakeperpage` whose syntax is identical to that of perpage, above. You can load the module by `\``usepackage[perpage]{zref}` (or as `\``usepackage{zref-perpage}`, if your needs so require — look at zref’s documentation for details).

The footmisc package provides a variety of means of controlling footnote appearance, among them a package option `perpage` that adjusts the numbering per page; if you’re doing something else odd about footnotes, it means you may only need the one package to achieve your ends.

The footnpag package also does per-page footnotes (and nothing else). With the competition from perpage, it’s probably not particularly useful any more. (Documentation is footnpag-user.pdf in the distribution.)

`footmisc.sty`
  macros/latex/contrib/footmisc (or browse the directory)
`footnpag.sty`
  macros/latex/contrib/footnpag (or browse the directory)
`perpage.sty`
  Distributed as part macros/latex/contrib/bigfoot (or browse the directory)
`zref.sty`
  Distributed as a collection member in macros/latex/contrib/oberdiek (or browse the directory)
`zref-perpage.sty`
  Distributed as a collection member in macros/latex/contrib/oberdiek (or browse the directory)

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