So you used an asterisks... now what?

Posted by theplatypus in

22 Sep 2010 — 4:05pm

Would love to pick your amazing brains regarding what character to use after an asterisk. I've seen one (*), then two (**) and three (***). Is that acceptable? Is there another character one can use without looking outright jarring?

The context is that a subhead uses an asterisk, and then a product description uses one to reference the fine print.

Tomi from Suomi
22 Sep 2010 — 4:28pm

You could use superiors, since they are the logical use for footnotes. Asterisk is more commonly used in prose, where footnotes are not that frequent.

johnnova
22 Sep 2010 — 4:43pm

Superscript numbers work well. Daggers can work too. Multiple Asterisks can look clunky and are difficult to hang in footnotes and disclaimers.

Will Stanford
22 Sep 2010 — 5:26pm

For me multiple footnotes has always meant superscript numbers, doubly so if it is a formal or scientific document.

eliason
22 Sep 2010 — 6:41pm

See Nick Shinn's 22.Jan.2007 1.56pm post at http://typophile.com/node/30176

William Berkson
22 Sep 2010 — 7:40pm

The traditional way to deal with this is to use asterisk, then dagger, then double dagger. Then, according to Chicago Manual of Style, use two asterisks, two daggers, etc.

Traditionally, dagger and double dagger were used pretty often. You can also use section marks if need be. But now that numbered end notes are more common, the asterisk etc. are most often used for footnotes when you have both a footnote and numbered end note. And then usually there aren't so many footnotes. After all, the object of the author and designer should be something that you can actually read, not a puzzle.

riccard0
23 Sep 2010 — 3:24am