since you're now looking for heuristics, and nobody has yet mentioned working with multiple columns, let me address that a bit from experience here at ams, mostly with the ams notices. if there is a running footer, that, of course, always goes at the very bottom. if there is a spanning bottom float, that goes next at the bottom; one-column footnotes go above a spanning float. i have no experience with spanning footnotes. however, there are a number of situations where ancillary material is packaged into a spanning bottom float with its own multi-column arrangement; the number of columns in the float may, but need not, be the same as the number of columns on the main part of the page. a spanning bottom float which covers fewer columns than the whole page goes above any full-width spanning floats. one-column footnotes are still above this. a one-column bottom float goes above footnotes. a footnote goes at the bottom of the same column as its callout. unnumbered footnotes (first-page credits, e.g.) always go in the column in which the item begins. if the last column ends "short", any footnotes in that column still go at the very bottom of the page. a one-column, full-page-length float appears to be preferentially placed in an "outside" column. tables are more often placed at the top rather than at the bottom. footnotes to a table appear directly below the table. -- bb