[texhax] notes at end of book

[Robin Fairbairns]

> As Robin Fairbairns kindly suggested, the pagenote package does a good
> job of printing notes at the end of a book, neatly arranged by
> chapters.  To convert existing \footnote{} commands to \pagenote{}
> commands, one can insert into the preamble the line 
> \renewcommand{\footnote}[2][1]{\pagenote{#2}}

do you actually use the optional argument of \footnote, anywhere?

i would be inclined to

  \renewcommand\footnote[1]{\pagenote{#1}}

> This works well in simple cases. My book has some complications on which
> pagenote stumbles, such as how to handle \url{} or \index{} in a note. 

you can generate robust url commands by \urldef.  the comments in the
package suggests

%    \urldef{\myself}{\email}{myself%node.domain at gateway.net}

as an example.  i do that myself in similar situations where i want a
url in a moving argument.

deal with the index issue by amending the definition:

  \renewcommand\footnote[1]{{\let\index\relax\pagenote{#1}}}

though index entries pointing to endnotes seem distinctly odd, to me.

> Perhaps its best just to leave notes at the bottom of pages where
> readers and LaTeX both expect them.

depends on the readers; latex expects what it's programmed to expect
-- it's always dangerous to personify a program, i find.

a book series i'm helping with has notes at the end of each subsection
(approx -- they're not called subsections).  a book on international
law i typeset a few years back had them at the end of each chapter.
in both cases, the usage seems natural enough to me.