[Tex/LaTex] Alternative symbol sets for footnote marks

Question

The footmisc package describes 3 additional systems in which one can apply numbering to footnotes in a paper:

bringhurst: ∗, †, ‡, §, ||, ¶.

chicago: ∗, †, ‡, §, ||, #.

wiley: ∗, ∗∗, †, ‡, §, ¶, ||.

This is in addition to these methods:

arabic numerals: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

roman numerals: I, II, III, IV, V.

letters: a, b, c, d, e.

For my purposes, I think a system such as bringhurst, chicago, or wiley are suitable, because custom symbols are used:

• Arabic numerals appear to frequently throughout my document already.
• I can't find single-character unicode roman numerals exceeding 12. When rendered in XeTex, numbers above (such as "ⅫⅡ") appear with an added space.
• The letters in the alphabet look too much like the text of the document.

However, I find that the bringhurst, chicago, or wiley systems has some problems:

• They are limited to 6 or 7 symbols. I need at least 30, if not more.
• They do not appear to follow a logical pattern explaining the order or shape.
• They use symbols such as ¶, § and #, which I think usually carry very different meanings.

Are there any other sets of symbols within LaTeX's packages or from unicode which you think could make good footnote marks?

Answer 1

From the alphalph package documentation:

1.2.3 Multiple symbols

LATEX's standard set of footnote symbols contains doubled symbols at the higher positions. Could this principle be generalized? Yes, but first we need a clean footnote symbol list without doubled entries, example:

\usepackage{alphalph}
\makeatletter
\newcommand*{\fnsymbolsingle}[1]{%
  \ensuremath{%
    \ifcase#1%
    \or *%
    \or \dagger
    \or \ddagger
    \or \mathsection
    \or \mathparagraph
    \else
      \@ctrerr
    \fi
  }%
}
\makeatother
\newalphalph{\fnsymbolmult}[mult]{\fnsymbolsingle}{}
\renewcommand*{\thefootnote}{%
  \fnsymbolmult{\value{footnote}}%
}

The own definition of \fnsymbolsingle has the advantage that this list can easily modified. Otherwise you can use \@fnsymbol directly, because it uses the same first five symbols.

\usepackage{alphalph}
\makeatletter
\newalphalph{\fnsymbolmult}[mult]{\@fnsymbol}{5}
\makeatother
\renewcommand*{\thefootnote}{%
  \fnsymbolmult{\value{footnote}}%
}