Compatibility with biblatex-chicago (modifying makefntext)

[frankier]

Thanks very much for your efforts to bring tagged PDF support to LaTeX.

I am trying to modify a class to give the option of using this in it's preview-state. One problem is that biblatex-chicago modifies footnotes in a way that seems to cause an error.

Here is an (fairly) minimal example minimal.tex:

\DocumentMetadata{testphase={phase-III}, pdfversion=2.0, pdfstandard=A-4}

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[backend=biber]{biblatex-chicago}
\addbibresource{mybib.bib}

\begin{document}

Lorem ipsum...

\end{document}

mybib.bib:

@manual{biblatex-manual,
  author =       {Philipp Lehman and others},
  title =        {The {biblatex} Package},
  subtitle =     {Programmable Bibliographies and Citations},
  date =         {2012-08},
  version =      {2.2},
  url =          {http://mirror.ctan.org/macros/latex/contrib/biblatex/doc/biblatex.pdf},
  urldate =      {2013-01-29}
}

The error is:

! Undefined control sequence.
<argument> \ERROR 
       \cs_set_eq:NN \__fnote_tmp:w \exp_stop_f: 
l.7 \begin{document}

The probable culprit from biblatex-chicago.sty is

\renewcommand\@makefntext[1]{% Provides in-line footnote marks
      \setlength\parindent{1em}%
      \noindent
      \makebox[2.3em][r]{\@thefnmark.\,\,}#1}

Adding footmarkoff as an option to biblatex-chicago disables this snippet and seems to fix the problem so is a reasonable workaround for the time being.

[frankier]

I forgot to add the versions I'm using. The are whatever is in TexLive 2023 2024-01-07. I obtained these via this Docker image: registry.gitlab.com/islandoftex/images/texlive:TL2023-2024-01-07-full

[u-fischer]

Hm, yes if it redefines \@makefntext that definitively breaks the footnote tagging. I'm not sure why biblatex-chicago actually changes the footnotes, that doesn't look like a task of a bibliography package but probably that should be not to difficult to fix. Do you have an example document (without tagging) which uses footnotes so that I can check what that does without having to read all the biblatex-chicago documentation?

[frankier]

Here's one! enthesis.pdf

It's apparently following the Chicago Manual of Style 14.24.

"the formatting of note numbers, both in the main text and at the bottom of the page / end of the essay (superscript in the text, in-line in the notes; 14.24)."

https://edwardseducationblog.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/the-chicago-manual-of-style-online-14-24_-purpose-of-shortened-citations.pdf

So I guess shorter citations are forced in footnotes? I'm not entirely sure how it relates to these commands that seem to be adding padding...

[u-fischer]

No not a PDF. I need some LaTeX code to run tests. (It doesn't need to be long, one or two citations are quite enough).

[frankier]

Okay! Hopefully this works larger.tex:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[authordate,backend=biber]{biblatex-chicago}
\addbibresource{mybib.bib}

\begin{document}

This document uses \LaTeX\parencite{lamport94:_latex} and \texttt{biblatex} -- see \textcite{biblatex-manual} -- and \texttt{biblatex-chicago} \parencite{biblatex-chicago-manual}\footnote{Please note that \texttt{biblatex-chicago} -- see \textcite{biblatex-chicago-manual} -- does some invasive modifications of footnotes themselves in order to try and closely follow the Chicago Manual of Style.}.

Another paragraph...

\printbibliography

\end{document}

mybib.bib

@manual{biblatex-manual,
  author =       {Philipp Lehman and others},
  title =        {The {biblatex} Package},
  subtitle =     {Programmable Bibliographies and Citations},
  date =         {2012-08},
  version =      {2.2},
  url =          {http://mirror.ctan.org/macros/latex/contrib/biblatex/doc/biblatex.pdf},
  urldate =      {2013-01-29}
}
@manual{biblatex-chicago-manual,
  author =       {David Fussner},
  title =        {The {biblatex-chicago} package},
  subtitle =     {Style files for {biblatex}},
  date =         {2012-07-30},
  version =      {0.9.9a},
  url =          {http://mirror.ctan.org/macros/latex/contrib/biblatex/doc/biblatex.pdf},
  urldate =      {2013-01-29}
}

@Book{lamport94:_latex,
  author =       {Leslie Lamport},
  title =        {{\LaTeX}},
  subtitle =     {A Document Preparation System},
  publisher =    {Addison--Wesley},
  year =         1994,
  edition =      2,
  address =      {Reading, MA}
}

[frankier]

Although checking that example, the main difference I see between with and without footmarkoff is that the default chicago-biblatex behaviour is to try and enlarge the footnote reference so it is the same size as normal text rather than footnote size (which is less aesthetically pleasing imo)

[u-fischer]

The new footnote code tries to patch existing \@makefntext commands to add tagging support. This patch fails here as biblatex-chicago uses \makebox to align the marker, while the patch looks for a low-level \hb@xt@. So a simple way out for you and/or biblatex-chicago is to change the definition to use the low-level command:

\renewcommand\@makefntext[1]{% Provides in-line footnote marks
      \setlength\parindent{1em}%
      \noindent
      \hb@xt@2.3em{\hss\@thefnmark.\,\,}#1}

This is not meant as a final solution. It would be better if biblatex-chicago could use the new sockets to adapt the marks, but imho there is a suitable test missing (and more documentation). I will open a new issue about that.

[u-fischer]

Ah, just realized that you opened the issue in tagpdf. I will transfer that to tagging-project. That fits better.

[FrankMittelbach]

I wonder how often we do have the case of a \@makefntext definition that uses \makebox. Perhaps we should attempt to patch those as well to get a wider applicable solution while code isn't yet updated. (One can't really fault biblatex style to make use of higher level interface :-) even though they now get in the way).

[FrankMittelbach]

Actually not that often. But I extended the patching to \makebox anyway. So with the next release that should be covered too. It still requires one day to move the biblatex code over to a solution that makes use of the sockets rather than redefining \@makefntext.

[zoof]

I don't know if this is the same or a related bug but when I try to use biblatex-chicago in the moderncv class. After patching biblatex-chicago.sty following https://github.com/latex3/tagging-project/issues/62#issuecomment-1946273522, I get:

! LaTeX Error: Command \@makefntext undefined.

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

l.226     {}}}

?

The .tex file is:

\documentclass{moderncv}

\usepackage{biblatex-chicago}
\addbibresource{mybib.bib}

\name{First}{Last}

\begin{document}

\begin{refsection}
    \nocite{lamport94:_latex,biblatex-manual,biblatex-chicago-manual}
    \printbibliography[title=Publications]
\end{refsection}

\end{document}

and I'm using the bibliography above.

[u-fischer]

@zoof not sorry this has nothing to do with the tagging code -- as you are not using it at all. The moderncv class doesn't support footnotes.

[zoof]

@u-fischer Thank you. Is there anyway to turn off footnotes?

[u-fischer]

sorry but this here is not the right place to ask about general support. We neither maintain moderncv nor biblatex-chicago. Ask e.g. on tex.stackexchange.

[zoof]

Oh, never mind -- just saw the earlier post.