full-width bits in double column

[Jeff Kingston]

David Oxilia wrote:
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It's unfortunate that lout doesn't
allow this as many journals (at least those that that I read)
usually place the abstract above the main part of the two-column
text.
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This can be done in Lout, and although the report style does not
have it, it does have a @FullText symbol which would allow you
to simulate it.  What you can't do is anthing that requires
evening up two columns, i.e. placing full-width text below
two-column text.
 
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Is it possible to place unnumbered footnotes?
More generally, can one label a footnote with any arbitrary
object (e.g., a dagger or an asterisk). I'm aware that it is
possible to set this for the document as a whole (in the style
definitions) but can one define a symbol that will pass as an
option an arbitrary object? Of course one would still want to
retain the usual @FootNote symbol for in-text flowing footnotes.
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Not at present, but it would be quite easy to add an option to
the @FootNote symbol to do this.  I'll add it to my list of
things to do for the next release.
 
I guess there are some questions though about the numbering of
all the footnotes when you start to do this.  Presumably any
footnotes labelled manually like this don't participate in the
general footnote numbering thing.  That would take a bit more 
work but still is not very hard.
 
Jeff