General ⇒ Complex? layout help?

[wednesday]

Hello Folks,

I'm brand new to LaTeX, looking for some guidance.

I have read a couple of the introductory books/documents, done a bunch of simple tutorials, and got basic examples/documents working fine. Then I've spend a couple of days trying to achieve my real typesetting goal, without success

Here's an image of roughly what I'm trying to achieve:



The yellow highlights aren't important, but what you (hopefully) see here is that my document contains three main "classes" of text:

1. The text which is the subject of inquiry (shown in blue),

2. A long list of commentary/notes about 1 (shown in black), with groups of notes appearing directly under the relevant sections of blue text, and

3. A collection of quotes and citations occurring within 2 (shown in brown). Almost all of these quotes/citations are from other sources--but a few refer to other notes in the current document as a "see note 334" reference.


I have played around with fbox, minipage, footnotes, endnotes, verbatim, cross-refs, but I can't seem to find a basic document structure that will support output like this. Most of the packages/commands I have seen want to render all the notes at the bottom of a page. Minipage looked promising (and perhaps the answer is there somehow?), but it doesn't seem to want me to use numbered notes across the broader scope of the document. I also read that minipage doesn't allow floats, which might be a problem further downstream.

So... is there a neat/obvious way to structure a document like this:

subject-text including notes
notes including citations
---
subject-text including notes
notes including citations
---
subject-text including notes
notes including citations
---
Etc.

With annotation numbers running throughout the whole document?

I'm sure the problem is between the seat and the keyboard, but any pointers would be much appreciated!

Thanks

[wednesday]

No takers?

Perhaps I am way off the mark, and there's simply a "better way" to do a critique-type documents? I would be happy to learn about it!

Meanwhile, this is the closest I've managed so far:

Code: Select all

\documentclass[english]{article}

%\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}

\usepackage{babel}

\begin{document}


\section{Donec mattis}


\begin{minipage}{\textwidth}
\begin{quote}
Fusce dapibus, velit rutrum facilisis ullamcorper. Fusce sollicitudin

diam massa, quis egestas metus vulputate\,\footnote{Nam est ligula, laoreet nec ipsum vitae, facilisis volutpat ipsum.

lectus justo dignissim augue, eu tincidunt tellus erat non massa.} Duis arcu orci sodales vitae\,\footnote{arcu dapibus aliquet\,consequat eget, euismod eu mi}.

Donec mattis iaculis\, \footnote{Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur

ridiculus mus. Vivamus aliquet cursus blandit. Cras rutrum, elit at

porttitor hendrerit, lorem lectus posuere mauris, at lacinia dolor

urna non sapien. } Cras convallis bibendum mi. Vivamus id quam euismod, rhoncus orci

ac, elementum erat. Integer lacinia augue nunc.\,\footnote{per Aliquam sagittis eros vitae urna lobortis elementum. Phasellus

iaculis nibh sed eros dictum ultricies. Class aptent taciti sociosqu

ad litora torquent per conubia nostra inceptos himenaeos. }Donec ligula nunc, porta non ipsum non, semper hendrerit massa.\end{quote}
\end{minipage}
\medskip{}

\begin{minipage}{\textwidth}
\begin{quote}
Fusce dapibus, velit rutrum facilisis ullamcorper. Fusce sollicitudin

diam massa, quis egestas metus vulputate\,\footnote{Nam est ligula, laoreet nec ipsum vitae, facilisis volutpat ipsum.

lectus justo dignissim augue, eu tincidunt tellus erat non massa.} Duis arcu orci sodales vitae\,\footnote{arcu dapibus aliquet\,consequat eget, euismod eu mi}.

Donec mattis iaculis\, \footnote{Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur

ridiculus mus. Vivamus aliquet cursus blandit. Cras rutrum, elit at

porttitor hendrerit, lorem lectus posuere mauris, at lacinia dolor

urna non sapien. } Cras convallis bibendum mi. Vivamus id quam euismod, rhoncus orci

ac, elementum erat. Integer lacinia augue nunc.\,\footnote{per Aliquam sagittis eros vitae urna lobortis elementum. Phasellus

iaculis nibh sed eros dictum ultricies. Class aptent taciti sociosqu

ad litora torquent per conubia nostra inceptos himenaeos. }Donec ligula nunc, porta non ipsum non, semper hendrerit massa.\end{quote}
\end{minipage}

\end{document}

Unfortunately it doesn't really look nice enough to use.

Can I customise the minipage output so that:

1. It shows some vertical white-space instead of a horizontal rule,
2. It doesn't indent the notes,
3. It uses numbered notes instead of lettered,
4. It uses a bigger typeface?

Also, I'm not sure why the whole of the second minipage is indented?

Any help much appreciated.

[wednesday]

Okay.

So after several days of searching in all the wrong places I have finally stumbled across the existence of the reledmac and ednotes packages for typesetting critical editions, which may be what I need.

[Stefan Kottwitz]

Hello,

welcome to the forum! Yes, reledmac is an excellent choice for it. Last year, our DANTE friend Martin made a talk about critical editions and reledmac. Perhaps take a look: presentation slides. It's written in German though. But there are nice samples.

Stefan

[wednesday]

Thanks for the welcome

yes, the reledmac package is looking really promising for my scenario.

One thing I can't figure out from the (generally excellent) documentation is how to control the appearance (type size) of a familiar-note's Mark where the notes are typeset below the main text.

Section 5.4.2 of the doc explains:

5.4.2 Customizing mark
Each series uses a set of macros for styling the marks. The mark numbering scheme of series A is defined by the \thefootnoteA macro; the default is:
\renewcommand*{\thefootnoteA}{\arabic{footnoteA}}

The appearance of the mark in the text is controlled by \bodyfootmarkA which is defined as:
\newcommand*{\bodyfootmarkA}{%
\hbox{\textsuperscript{\normalfont\@nameuse{@thefnmarkA}}}}

The command \footfootmarkA controls the appearance of the mark at the start of the footnote text. It is defined as:
\newcommand*{\footfootmarkA}{\textsuperscript{\@nameuse{@thefnmarkA}}}

There are similar command triples for the other series.

Unfortunately, none of the shipped example files include this command.

I've tried all the guesses I can surmise, but none of them work

What syntax should I use in my .tex file with the \footfootmarkA command to tell LaTeX I want Marks of the A series to be displayed in normal sized type?

[Johannes_B]

Hi and welcome from me too. I was thinking about your problem and figured it too be to complicated for reledmac. Good you have found something, saved me time to think about it further.

Can you post a working code examples that gives a ready to compile pdf showing the different footnotes? That would be helpful.

[wednesday]

Here's where I am at so far:

Code: Select all

\documentclass[12pt,twoside]{article}
\usepackage{polyglossia,fontspec,xunicode}
\usepackage{libertineotf}
\usepackage{microtype}
\setmainlanguage{english}
\setlength{\parindent}{0pt}

\usepackage[series={A},noend,noeledsec]{reledmac}
\firstlinenum{1} 
\linenumincrement{2}
\linenummargin{left}
\Xnotefontsize[A]{\small}
\notefontsizeX[A]{\small}
 

\begin{document}

\beginnumbering

\begin{ledgroup}
\pstart

Aenean nulla nunc, consectetur sed sem non, mollis facilisis mi. Aliquam tristique%
%
\footnoteA{Cras venenatis porta congue. Praesent sollicitudin, est eget eleifend pharetra, arcu justo scelerisque enim, ac convallis orci ex vehicula urna.}%
\,%
Vivamus sit amet efficitur dolor. Donec vitae elit quis lorem ullamcorper congue id ac nunc.%
%
\footnoteA{Aliquam tincidunt venenatis orci, eget congue mauris lacinia ut. Pellentesque a pellentesque elit.}%
\,%
Nunc sed risus lacinia, volutpat nisl eu, varius urna. In sed sapien magna. Nam vulputate ipsum sapien, quis laoreet neque mollis id.%
%
\footnoteA{Ut a gravida sapien, a porttitor tortor. Nullam iaculis pharetra consequat. Pellentesque vitae lacus quam.}%

\pend
\end{ledgroup}


\bigskip
\begin{ledgroup}
\pstart

Maecenas ante nisl. Suspendisse ut maximus nulla. Pellentesque vitae. Nunc lacinia a neque in bibendum.%
%
\footnoteA{Suspendisse ut maximus nulla. Pellentesque vitae erat ut purus maximus vehicula id aliquam ipsum. Nunc lacinia a neque in bibendum.}%
\,%
Duis elementum. Vivamus sit amet efficitur dolor. Donec congue id ac nunc.%
%
\footnoteA{Praesent facilisis a massa id tincidunt. Nulla facilisi. Duis elementum eget est et convallis. Vivamus sit amet efficitur dolor.}%
\,%
Duis pretium quam id. Aliquam erat volutpat. Ut a erat rutrum, vehicula elit sed, tristique ante. In pellentesque ipsum non posuere ornare.%
%
\footnoteA{Ut a gravida sapien, a porttitor tortor. Nullam iaculis pharetra consequat. Pellentesque vitae lacus quam.}%
\,%
Phasellus porta ipsum vitae dictum aliquet. Ut a gravida sapien, a porttitor tortor. Nullam iaculis pharetra consequat.
%
\pend
\end{ledgroup}


\bigskip
\begin{ledgroup}
\pstart

Quisque quis dictum sapien.%
%
\footnoteA{Suspendisse ut maximus nulla. Pellentesque vitae erat ut purus maximus vehicula id aliquam ipsum. Nunc lacinia a neque in bibendum.}%
\,%
Proin Pellentesque vitae erat ut purus maximus vehicula id aliquam ipsum. Nunc lacinia a neque in bibendum.%
%
\footnoteA{Suspendisse ut maximus nulla. Pellentesque vitae erat ut purus maximus vehicula id aliquam ipsum. Nunc lacinia a neque in bibendum.}%
\,%
Duis elementum eget est et convallis. Vivamus sit amet efficitur dolor. Donec vitae elit quis lorem ullamcorper congue id ac nunc.%
%
\footnoteA{Praesent facilisis a massa id tincidunt. Nulla facilisi. Duis elementum eget est et convallis. Vivamus sit amet efficitur dolor.}%
\,%
Duis pretium quam tellus, id laoreet nisl consequat id. Aliquam erat volutpat. Ut a erat rutrum, vehicula elit sed, tristique ante.%
%
\footnoteA{Ut a gravida sapien, a porttitor tortor. Nullam iaculis pharetra consequat. Pellentesque vitae lacus quam.}%
\,%
Phasellus porta ipsum vitae dictum aliquet. Ut a gravida sapien, a porttitor tortor. Nullam iaculis pharetra consequat.%
%
\pend
\end{ledgroup}


\endnumbering

\end{document}

The \begin{ledgroup} ... \end{ledgroup} feature is what really makes my layout possible. These are superior to minipage because a group can span a pagebreak. reledmac also supports outputting notes at the end of defined sections, but I haven't experimented with that feature yet.

An improvement I would really like to make to the above code is to use normalsized Marks in the footnotes (thus my question upthread).

Also, a problem I have observed is that I cannot get \verb to work within the text of a familiar note. Is there a reason and/or workaround for this?

Any advise on these--or other optimisations--much appreciated

[Johannes_B]

Concerning the marks, i think you want the following:

Code: Select all

\makeatletter
\renewcommand*{\footfootmarkA}{\@nameuse{@thefnmarkA}\space}
\makeatother

I think there were some other questions, but they seem to be gone.

The verbatim stuff, i'll ping the author.

EDIT: https://github.com/maieul/ledmac/issues/499

[wednesday]

Thanks Johannes_B, that worked for the Marks. Many thanks--I have spent hours looking for examples and guessing, but I never would have guessed that

Yes, there were a couple of other questions, but I solved them already, so I edited them out.

One was removing the horizontal rule above footnotes (which I did with \usepackage[norule]{footmisc}), and the other was about indenting the main text (but I ended up doing something nicer with \usepackage{lettrine}).

Thanks again for your help

[Stefan Kottwitz]

Also, a problem I have observed is that I cannot get \verb to work within the text of a familiar note. Is there a reason and/or workaround for this?

\verb is very special and so it has restrictions. But there are packages which provide such verbatim commands which also work in footnotes and elsewhere, when the original \verb would fail.

For example, using the examplep package:

Code: Select all

\usepackage{examplep}

\footnoteA{Cras \PVerb{\text$\%\\} venenatis porta congue.}

Stefan