[Tex/LaTex] Occasional counter too large error despite \MakePerPage

bigfooterrorsfootnotes

I am using the bigfoot package to generate two styles of footnotes, which I signal using either the normal \footnote or my new \footnoteB. FootnoteB uses alphabetical numbering but the count is reset each page (\MakePerPage); nowhere do I have even close to 26 of them on a single page. Here's what I've got in the preamble:

\usepackage{bigfoot}
\DeclareNewFootnote[para]{B}[alph]
\DeclareNewFootnote{default}

\usepackage{perpage}
\MakePerPage{footnoteB}
\renewcommand{\thefootnoteB}{\emph{\alph{footnoteB}}}

Most of the time it works fine. However, every so often when I'm compiling it will hit a footnoteB (not necessarily the same one every time) and come up with the 'counter too large' error, which shouldn't be possible for the reasons above. Sometimes I've been able to fix this by removing and then adding back in the perpage package, but the compiling seems a bit stuck this time around (after deleting aux files and trying again, etc.).

Why is it having this issue (of sometimes trying to number continuously) despite the \MakePerPage in the preamble, and how can I get it back on track?

Best Answer

In the first run it is not known, on which pages the footnotes go. Thus it might happen, that a footnote exceeds the 26 letters. You can try package alphalph to allow higher values for the footnote counter:

\usepackage{alphalph}
\renewcommand{\thefootnoteB}{\emph{\alphalph{\value{footnoteB}}}}

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Error: Counter too large! with \alph{cntr} and cntr>26

The alphalph package by H. Oberdiek provides the second numbering system out of the box. As usual with Heiko's packages, a counter representation such as

\renewcommand{\thesection}{\alphalph{\value{section}}}

is completely expandable.

And, as you remark in comments, with

\makeatletter
\newalphalph{\alphmult}[mult]{\@alph}{26}
\makeatother
\renewcommand{\thesection}{\alphmult{\value{section}}}

you get your preferred way. Of course, replace section with the counter you need.

[Tex/LaTex] Counter too large error with \item

This is a short hack, for enumerate package using \AlphAlph as counter output format. (The \foreach is just the loop to generate 50 \item )

In a normal setup, enumerate[(A)] can use only the 26 characters of the Latin alphabet such that \Alph{enumi} would fail if the enumi counter has a value of 27 or greater. To prevent this, the [(A)] output must be changed to use \AlphAlph{\value{enumi}} (for example)

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{alphalph}
\usepackage{enumerate}
\usepackage{pgffor}


\begin{document}

\renewcommand{\theenumi}{\AlphAlph{\value{enumi}}}

\begin{enumerate} 
\foreach \x in {1,...,50} {%
  \item Question \x 
}
\end{enumerate}
\end{document}

Improved version with enumitem

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{alphalph}
\usepackage{enumitem}

\makeatletter
\newcommand{\AlphAlphFmt}[1]{\@alphfmt{#1}}  % Define the \AlphAlph wrapper for enumitem 
\newcommand{\@alphfmt}[1]{\AlphAlph{\value{#1}}}  % Internal representation 
\AddEnumerateCounter{\AlphAlphFmt}{\@alphfmt}{AAA} % Register this new format
\makeatother

\newlist{mcenum}{enumerate}{2}
\setlist[mcenum,1]{label={(\AlphAlphFmt*)}}


\usepackage{pgffor}
\usepackage{multicol}

\begin{document}

\begin{multicols}{2}
\begin{mcenum}
\foreach \x in {1,...,60} {%
  \item Question \x 
}
\end{mcenum}
\end{multicols}

\end{document}

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Error: Counter too large! with \alph{cntr} and cntr>26

[Tex/LaTex] Counter too large error with \item

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