Footnotes and Endnotes

Tips, Tricks, and Answers

The following articles are available for the 'Footnotes and Endnotes' topic. Click the article's title (shown in bold) to see the associated article.

Adding Endnotes in Text Boxes
Text boxes and endnotes are both great tools you can use within a document. Problem is, you cannot use them together—Word doesn't allow you to add endnotes within a text box. This tip looks at how you can get round this problem.

Adding Information after the Endnotes
Endnotes appear at the end of the document, right? Not always, as Word provides a way that you can actually add as much information as you want after the endnotes.

Automatically Adding Tabs in Footnotes
Word, by default, places a space between a footnote reference character and the actual footnote text. If you want to use a tab instead, you'll find the information in this tip invaluable.

Center-column Footnotes
Some books have a layout that calls for placing notes between the two columns of a printed page. Word doesn't provide such a capability, but there are a few things you can try to get the desired layout.

Changing How Footnote References Appear
Footnote references normally appear as superscripted digits, both in the main body of your document and in the footnotes area. Unfortunately, changing them is not that easy. If you want them to appear differently, then you need to apply some workarounds as described in this tip.

Changing the Footnote Continuation Notice
When a footnote needs to span two printed pages, Word prints a continuation notice at the end of the footnote being continued. This tip explains how you can change the wording in that notice.

Changing the Footnote Continuation Separator
When you add a really long footnote to a document, it could be that the entire footnote might not fit on the page where the footnote reference appears. If that is the case, Word continues the footnote to a subsequent page. You can control the separator that is used for such continuations.

Changing the Footnote Separator
When you print a document that uses footnotes, Word normally places a small line between the end of the document body text and the start of the footnotes on the page. You can change this line to anything you want by following the steps in this tip.

Changing the Way Endnotes Are Numbered
Word is flexible on how it numbers your endnotes. This tip shows how easy it is to make the changes to the numbering system.

Changing the Way Footnotes Are Numbered
Most footnotes in a document start numbering with the number 1 and proceed from there through the rest of your document. It doesn't have to be that way, though. You can customize the way that your footnotes appear by using the information in this tip.

Comments in Endnotes
Able to add comments everywhere, except in endnotes? This seems to be a limitation in Word, but here's some ways to work around the problem.

Continuous Formatting for Footnotes
If you've got a lot of short footnotes in a document, you might be looking for a way to save space by "crunching up" the footnotes by running them together in a single paragraph on each page. This tip explores why this can't be easily done in Word.

Controlling Endnote Placement
Endnotes are often used in technical and scholarly documents. You can control exactly where the endnotes appear in your document by following the steps presented in this tip.

Controlling Footnote Placement
Footnotes are normally placed at the bottom of the page on which the footnote is referenced. However, Word provides some flexibility on the actual placement of the note on the printed page. This tip discusses the options you have.

Converting Endnotes to Regular Text
If you have a document with lots of endnotes, you may need them converted to regular text so that they can be used properly by another program. Doing the conversion by hand can quickly get tedious, but there are a few things you can do to make the process easier.

Converting Individual Endnotes and Footnotes
Word makes it easy to convert all your footnotes to endnotes and vice versa. You may want to only convert a couple of them, and the key to doing this is discussed in this tip.

Converting to Automatic Endnotes
If you've worked with a document that contains "manual" endnotes that are simply typed as part of the document, you know it can be a real bother to get them into Word's automatic note system. This tip provides some guidance on ways you can make the conversion process as easy (and painless) as possible.

Copying and Moving Footnotes
Footnotes are a necessary feature for many types of writing. Once placed, a footnote remains anchored to a specific location in your document. You can move or copy footnotes using many of the same editing techniques you already know.

Copying and Moving Footnotes and Endnotes
If you need to move footnotes or endnotes from one location to another in a document, you can use editing techniques you already know. You can also use the same techniques to copy the notes.

Creating a Bibliography from Footnotes
Most scholarly papers need to have both footnotes and a bibliography. The two are closely related, as they provide different views of the resources consulted in compiling the paper. Word doesn't allow you to automatically create a bibliography from your footnotes, but there are a few things you can try to make the creation process easier.

Creating Unnumbered Endnotes
Endnotes are indispensable in some types of writing. You may want to create endnotes, however, that don't follow the normal endnoting pattern used by Word. Here's how to create endnotes that are outside the pattern and that don't use numbering at all.

Default Numbering Format for Endnotes
The default format for endnote numbers is lowercase Roman numerals. If you want the numbers to use a different format, such as uppercase Roman numerals or Arabic numerals, then you need to make a change in the template you use to create new documents.

Deleting All Footnotes
Tired of all those footnotes hanging on the bottom of each page in your document? You can get rid of them in one step, as described in this tip.

Deleting Footnotes and Endnotes
Deleting either footnotes or endnotes is a simple process. Just select the reference mark and delete it. Assuming you are using automatically numbered notes, the remaining notes are renumbered for you, as if the deleted note had never existed.

Endnotes by Chapter
Word allows you to easily add endnotes to your document. It even allows you to specify where those endnotes should appear in the document, as discussed in this tip.

Endnotes in a Separate Document
When you add endnotes to a document they are normally positioned (as one would expect) at the end of the document. You may want, however, to move the endnotes to a separate document. Word doesn't allow you to easily do this, but there are a couple of ways you can approach the problem and come up with a solution that might work for your needs.

Footnotes Don't Automatically Renumber
Editing a document can, at times, be hard work. It isn't made easier if you feel that Word is "fighting" you on some tasks, like deleting footnotes. If you make a footnote deletion and the remaining footnotes don't renumber, there are a few things you can (and should) check out.

Footnotes in Two Columns
Footnotes are normally formatted using the same number of columns as what you use in the body of your document. If you want them in a differing number of columns, there are only a few things you can try out.

Footnotes within Footnotes
Footnotes are common in all sorts of documents. What is less common are placing footnotes within footnotes. Even though Word doesn't allow footnotes within footnotes, this tip describes a couple of ways you can accomplish the same task.

Formatting Endnote Reference Marks
The reference marks used for endnotes are, by default, formatted "good enough" for most people. If you are one of those for whom good enough isn't good enough, you can exercise complete control on how the reference marks appear.

Formatting Footnote and Endnote References
Some special journals or style guides require that footnotes and endnotes follow a very specific format in order to be acceptable. Unfortunately, Word is rather limited on ways to format footnotes and endnotes. This tip describes how you can work around some of the formatting challenges you may face.

Formatting Footnote Reference Marks
The reference marks that appear for footnotes in a document are normally just superscripted digits. If you want to change the formatting used for these references, you can do so by simply changing one of the default character styles in Word.

Formatting Footnotes and Endnotes
Footnotes and endnotes can be formatted in the same way that you format regular text in your document. There is an easier way to do the formatting, however—use styles.

Heavy-Duty Footnotes
If you need parallel sets of footnotes in your document (as described in this tip), Word simply can't handle it. There are a couple of things you can try as workarounds, however.

Including Footnotes and Endnotes in Word Counts
When you have Word calculate how many words there are in a document, it normally doesn't pay attention to text in footnotes and endnotes. If you want these words counted in the total, here's how to get the proper count.

Inserting and Deleting Footnotes
Adding footnotes to a document is easy as 1-2-3. Just use the menus to insert the reference mark, and then type the content of the footnote. Deleting a footnote is even easier, as outlined in this tip.

Inserting Endnotes
Endnotes appear at either the end of a section or the end of an entire document. It is just as easy to insert an endnote into a document as it is to insert footnotes.

Inserting Footnotes
Footnotes appear at the bottom (or foot) of each page. It is an easy task to insert a footnote at any point you desire, as described in this tip.

Inserting Footnotes Using Custom Footnote Marks
Word allows you to add footnotes to your documents, and you can control the marks used for them.

Jumping to a Footnote
Footnotes are used to help document information in the main body of a document. If you want, you can use the Go To capabilities of Word to immediately jump to a specific footnote.

Jumping to a Relative Endnote
Endnotes are easy enough to add and accumulate in a document. For this reason, Word makes it easy to jump from one endnote to another using the techniques described in this tip.

Jumping to a Relative Footnote
Footnotes can be a great addition to any document that needs detailed referencing of citations. You can navigate from one footnote to another by using the Find and Replace dialog box.

Jumping to an Endnote
Endnotes are often used in documents to document citations and sources. You can jump from endnote to endnote using the technique described in this tip.

Mixing Note Numbering
When inserting footnotes and endnotes in a document, most of us don't give much thought to the format used in the numbering of those notes. You can, however, modify the format used. If you want to mix different types of numbers in your notes, it is possible, but not without some changes to how you put your document together.

Moving Footnote Text into the Document
Footnotes are great for documenting information in the main part of the document. What if you want to move the information into the main document, however? You can either do it manually, or use the much easier automatic approach covered in this tip.

Printing without Footnotes
Want to print your document without all those footnotes included? It's not quite as easy as you might think, as this tip discloses.

Reference to a Range of Endnotes
When multiple endnote references are used at a given point in your document, you may wonder if there is a way to compress those multiple references to instead display a range. There is no inherent way, but you can get around that lack of capability by using the techniques in this tip.

Sequentially Numbering Footnotes
If you have a document with lots of footnotes, you might notice that some of those footnotes are not in numerical order, like they should be. It could be due to the way the footnotes are formatted. Here's how to fix it.

Shortcut to Return to Document Text
When you are done typing a footnote or endnote in your document, you may want a way to return to the main document text without the necessity of removing your hands from the keyboard. Word doesn't have a shortcut to do this, but another of Word's shortcuts may help you out.

Standardizing Note Reference Placement
When placing footnotes and endnotes in a document, it is normal that the references for these notes be placed after any punctuation that ends the clause or sentence to which the note refers. If you have a document that has many misplaced note references, you may be interested in this tip, which will switch the relationship of the note reference and the punctuation.

Understanding Footnotes and Endnotes
Footnotes and endnotes are often used in scholarly and formal writing as a way to provide additional information about a topic, without breaking up the flow of your text. Word allows you control over which type of note you use, and where that note is placed.

Using Cross-References in Footnotes
Need to make a cross-reference from one footnote to another footnote? You can do it if you throw bookmarks into the mix, as described in this tip.

Using Multiple Reference to the Same Footnote
Do you want to have multiple footnote references to the same actual footnote in a document? The easiest way to do this is to use cross-references, as described in this tip.

Using Multiple References to the Same Footnote
How to insert more than one reference to the same footnote.

Viewing Footnotes
The way that you view footnotes in a document depends on the view you are using to view the document itself. You will see them either at the bottom of the document page or within a footnotes pane as described in this tip.

Viewing Footnotes and Endnotes
Footnotes and endnotes are normally visible with the rest of your document, but such visibility is dependant on which viewing mode you are using. This tip explains how to display notes in a variety of viewing modes.

Where Do You Want Your Endnotes?
Endnotes can appear at the end of a section or at the end of a document. If you configure their placement for the end of a section, you can "skip" sections so that endnotes actually appear at the end of the following section. This tip describes an interesting scenario where this capability is invaluable.