Indeed, that is the same with me as well. I have a copy of Bringhurst (v. 4.3). Felici (James Felici (2012): The Complete Manual of Typography: A Guide to Set Perfect Type, Second Edition, Adobe Press) has several entries:Bringhurst, in his work on typography, says that often a font will provide both proportional and non-proportional numbers, but does not mention any specific font names in which this is the case.
The examples of footnotes given in the Chicago Manual of Style mostly indent the footnote number, allowing the footnote text flow after that indented number. I checked several other works on typography, finding that footnotes receive little mention.
He continues, though:Footnotes are generally assigned first-line indents identical to those in the main text. The indents prevent long passages of footnotes from looking too gray and make it easier for the reader to jump quickly to the correct note.
―Felici 2012: 232
As for footnote symbols other than numbers, which he specifically states are required in works ‘whose footnotes are apt to be cited in the bibliographies of others’ (op. cit. 233), he provides the list of the traditional footnote symbols, the final of which I was not aware of (which also explains why most decent fonts still include that symbol): *, † (U+2022), ‡ (U+2023), § and ¶ (U+b6). He does not recommend the final two, as they commonly can not be superscripted.Footnotes indicated by numerals or symbols can also be set with hanging indents, leaving the numerals or symbols hanging to the left and all the footnote lines indented by the same amount. Care has to be taken to keep the text alignment consistent when footnote numbers on the same page go from one digit to two.
―Loc. cit.
As for the positioning of the footnote anchor in the footnote, he recommends a superscript number set flush against the footnote text (loc. cit.), though I have found that rare in my literature. In some historical works, footnotes can run quite long, and being able to set those with a good Medium weight font otherwise formatted as the body text, means that if the body text is formatted with first-line indentation, it makes more sense to have the footnote number against the left margin and the footnote text with the same first-line indentation as the body text, as that will accomplish both things: Make it easier to identify the beginning of a new footnote in the case of multi-paragraph footnotes, and achieve the desired same-width indentation of the first line as with the body text.
Statistics: Posted by CannedMan — Mon May 27, 2024 8:38 pm