[XeTeX] XeLaTeX and unicode footnote symbols

[Will Robertson]

On 30/05/2007, at 0:16 , Hendrik Fuß wrote:

>> If you load the xunicode+fixltx2e packages, you don't need to make
>> the redefinition of fnsymbol but I'm not sure if the output will look
>> any different.
>
> Interesting. The minimal test case indeed works with these packages.
>
> My document was using euler, which apparently redefines footnotes,
> overriding the effects of xltxtra. Replacing euler with eulervm seems
> to fix the problem.

Ah, indeed it does. I wonder if it's worth delaying the footnote  
definition in xltxtra til begindocument. I guess not, since probably  
I'll be the culprit years down the track of changing something I  
shouldn't have.

> (Sometimes I just get tired of tracing LaTeX command redefinitions.  
> *sigh*)

Annoying sometimes, I agree.

> I should have been more explicit: the asterisk in most text fonts is
> already superscripted. While daggers and eveything else are correctly
> positioned as footnote markers, the asterisk is actually
> double-superscripted, making it appear too small.
>
> I'm not sure how one could handle this smoothly with LaTeX.

I see where you're coming from, but taking a look at Gentium, for  
example, to me the asterisk would look very much too dark if it  
weren't subscripted (i.e., if the raw glyph was used). I guess some  
of the Adobe OpenType fonts would have superscripted footnote symbols  
(at least, I'd hope) so it would be interested to put some  
comparisons together.

As far as getting by in LaTeX without superscripting the asterisk,  
you could use something like this, or a variation:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{fontspec}
\setromanfont{Gentium}
\begin{document}
\makeatletter
\newcommand\footnotesym[1]{\raisebox{0.8ex}{\small#1}}
\def\@fnsymbol#1{%
   \ifcase#1\or*\or \footnotesym†\or \footnotesym‡\or  
\footnotesym §\or \footnotesym ¶\or \footnotesym‖\or \footnotesym 
{**}\or \footnotesym{††}\or \footnotesym{‡‡}\else\@ctrerr\fi}
\def\@makefnmark{\@fnsymbol\@thefnmark}
\def\test#1{#1\footnote{#1} }
\test{one*}
\test{two}
\test{three}
\test{four}
\test{five}
\test{six}
\end{document}

I've only made the raised symbols \small because otherwise I don't  
think they blend with the asterisk, but they are grotesquely large.

Best regards,
Will