Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. If you are using a later version (Word 2007 or later), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for later versions of Word, click here: Inserting and Deleting Footnotes.

Inserting and Deleting Footnotes

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated September 9, 2023)

Footnotes are used to provide printed annotations or references for a document. If you want to insert a footnote in your document, follow these steps:

Position the insertion point where you want the footnote mark to be located.
Choose Footnote from the Insert menu. You will see the Footnote and Endnote dialog box appear. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. Footnote and Endnote dialog box.

Click on OK. A footnote mark appears in your document. If you are in Normal view, the Footnotes window is displayed at the bottom of the document window. If you are in Page Layout view, the insertion point moves to the bottom of the page where the footnote will appear.
Enter your footnote, formatting it as you would any other text in your document.
If the Footnotes window is visible, click on Close at the top of the Footnotes window.

If you previously inserted footnotes into your document, and you want to later delete one of them, follow these steps:

Highlight the footnote reference mark in your document.
Press either Del or Ctrl+X.

The footnote is deleted and, if you are using auto-numbered footnotes, the remaining footnotes in your document are renumbered.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (1059) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Word (Word 2007 and later) here: Inserting and Deleting Footnotes.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...

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