mjhjmtu

The standard LaTeX footnote behavior is to mark footnotes using superscript numbers. I can't use that, since all of my citations are superscript numbers. What I'd like is for my footnotes to be marked with symbols, and for the set of symbols to reset on each page (eg the first footnote on a page should always be marked with *). To make this happen I added the following to one of my .sty files:

renewcommand*thefootnotefnsymbolfootnote
usepackageperpage
MakePerPagefootnote

However, these lines break my build. When I run the make command and my makefile gets to the pdflatex step, every footnote after the 7th one now raises an error of the form:

! LaTeX Error: Counter too large.

See the LaTeX manual or LaTeX Companion for explanation.
Type H <return> for immediate help.
 ...

l.502 ... the topic of enhanced samplingfootnote{
 Technically, Kahn et al., ...

If I comment out those lines, everything builds just fine, though of course then the footnotes are wrong. If I comment out just the MakePerPagefootnote, then errors don't begin until after the 8th footnote. Either way, it seems like the MakePerPagefootnote directive is being ignored, and that LaTeX is running out of footnote symbols.

I've used the above approach to get symbol footnotes in previous projects. The difference seems to be that before I was writing/building my docs using Texpad, whereas now I have a manual makefile build. So obviously there's something wrong with/missing from my makefile. Here's what the contents of the makefile look like:

fname=main
$fname.pdf: $fname.tex 
 thesis_header.tex 
 abstract/abstract.tex 
 committee/committee.tex 
 acknowledgments/acknowledgments.tex 
 thesis_intro/thesis_intro.tex 
 bib/thesis_intro.bib 
 eces_chapter/error_control_of_enhanced_sampling.tex 
 bib/error_control_of_enhanced_sampling.bib 
 conclusion_chapter/conclusion_chapter.tex
 if [ -e $fname.aux ]; 
 then 
 rm $fname.aux; 
 fi;
 pdflatex $fname
 bibtex $fname
 bibtex $fname1-blx
 bibtex $fname2-blx
 # Add more if you have more chapters
 pdflatex $fname
 pdflatex $fname
 cp $fname.pdf PhD_Thesis.pdf
 open PhD_Thesis.pdf
clean:
 ...
open:
 open $fname.pdf
edit:
 open $fname.tex

All of the footnote errors occur during the first call to pdflatex. At the end of that first call to pdflatex, an (incomplete) pdf is produced, and the build halts with another error message:

make: *** [main.pdf] Error 1

This project is a PhD thesis, so I'm working off a template (written by another student a few years ago) that meets my school/library's formatting requirements (basically, some weird wide margins + the output has to be PDF/A). I didn't write the makefile, nor do I particularly understand it, I just substituted the .tex/.bib filenames with my own. The makefile doesn't resemble other example LaTeX makefile's that I was able to find on the internet, so I'm at a loss as how to fix it. Anyone familiar enough with the perpage package and/or similar footnote issues who can point me in the right direction?

If you want more details, the entire set of sources for my thesis are in a public repo here.

The problem has nothing to do with the make file. It is caused by the fact that LaTeX processes the input past the end of a page (for example, up to the end of the current paragraph) before it knows there is a page full of text, so the on the first pass through the document you have already processed some footnotes that will eventually end up on page 2 before makeperpage "knows" they are not all on page 1.

makeperpage works fine with numbered footnotes, because it is very unlikely to run out of numbers during the first pass through the document!

During the first pass, makeperpage remembers where the page breaks actually were, and uses that information to produce the correct footnote symbols on the second pass.

A brute force way to fix this is just to turn the error message into a warning. Insert the following into the preamble of your .tex input file, before begindocument:

makeatletter
gdef@ctrerr%
 @latex@warningCounter too large
makeatother

The "standard" version of LaTeX uses @latex@error not @latex@warning here.

the expected behaviour is to get an error on the 10th, some code you have not shown is presumably using two footnotes somewhere.

documentclassarticle

renewcommand*thefootnotefnsymbolfootnote
usepackageperpage
MakePerPagefootnote

begindocument

1footnotezz
2footnotezz
3footnotezz
4footnotezz
5footnotezz
6footnotezz
7footnotezz
8footnotezz
9footnotezz
10footnotezz
11footnotezz

enddocument

produces

! LaTeX Error: Counter too large.

See the LaTeX manual or LaTeX Companion for explanation.
Type H <return> for immediate help.
 ... 

l.18 10footnote
 zz
?

However fnsymbol is a trivial macro that can easily be extended, the default definition is

def@fnsymbol#1%
 ifcase#1or TextOrMathtextasteriskcentered *or
 TextOrMath textdagger daggeror
 TextOrMath textdaggerdbl ddagger or
 TextOrMath textsection mathsectionor
 TextOrMath textparagraph mathparagraphor
 TextOrMath textbardbl %

so you could use

documentclassarticle

renewcommand*thefootnotefnsymbolfootnote
usepackageperpage
MakePerPagefootnote

makeatletter
def@fnsymbol#1%
 ifcase#1or
 TextOrMathtextasteriskcentered *or
 TextOrMath textdagger daggeror
 TextOrMath textdaggerdbl ddagger or
 TextOrMath textsection mathsectionor
 TextOrMath textparagraph mathparagraphor
 TextOrMath textbardbl %
makeatother

begindocument

1footnotezz
2footnotezz
3footnotezz
4footnotezz
5footnotezz
6footnotezz
7footnotezz
8footnotezz
9footnotezz
10footnotezz
11footnotezz

enddocument