Different Layouts for Footnotes

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated May 13, 2017)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003


Footnotes can be a handy feature to use within a document. For some documents (such as academic or legal works), they are absolutely critical. How you create and use footnotes within your document has been discussed in other issues of WordTips.

When laying out your documents, you may want to have the number of columns in your footnotes be different from the number used in the main body of the document. For instance, you may want footnotes to use two columns, while the main body uses only one. Unfortunately, Word doesn't allow you to do this—the number of columns in the footnotes and the main body must match.

This requirement can cause other problems, too. For instance, try making the top half of a page two columns and the bottom half one column. (This is easily done with a continuous section break splitting the two parts of the page.) Next, insert a footnote in the two-column section, in the top-half of the page. Make sure the footnote is set to appear at the bottom of the page. When you insert it, the one-column section no longer resides on the same page as the two-column text, despite the continuous break.

The only way to work around this problem is to "fudge" and do a manual layout. This means doing something like manually placing footnotes in the footer of the page, or using a two-cell table to put text in the main body of the document. Either method is fraught with drawbacks that are immediately evident to any long-time Word user. (The biggest drawback being the "intensive" labor involved in making the manual layout work properly.)

If you only have a couple of short footnotes (less than one line each) and want to simulate columns, you can do it this way:

  1. Make sure the insertion point is within the first footnote on the page.
  2. Put a left tab stop at the position on the full width line where the second of two columns would begin.
  3. At the end of the first footnote, insert a tab.
  4. Format the paragraph mark of that paragraph as hidden text.
  5. When you turn off printing of hidden text, you will see that the second footnote has jumped up to the tab stop on the printout.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (1365) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003.

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. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Word Counts for a Group of Documents

Getting a word count for a single document is easy. Getting an aggregate word count for a large number of documents can ...

Discover More

Undeleting a Worksheet

Have you ever deleted a worksheet by mistake? Once you get over the sick feeling in your stomach, you will start casting ...

Discover More

Converting PDF to Excel

Reports and other formal documents are often distributed in PDF format so that they can be read and printed on a variety ...

Discover More

Learning Made Easy! Quickly teach yourself how to format, publish, and share your content using Word 2013. With Step by Step, you set the pace, building and practicing the skills you need, just when you need them! Check out Microsoft Word 2013 Step by Step today!

More WordTips (menu)

Standardizing Note Reference Placement

Want to modify where an endnote or footnote reference appears in relation to the punctuation in a sentence? Here's a way ...

Discover More

Adding Footnotes to Endnotes

Word does footnotes. Word does endnotes. Word doesn't do footnotes within endnotes. Here's a discussion as to why and ...

Discover More

Converting Footnotes to Endnotes

When you spend a lot of time creating footnotes, how can you convert all of them to endnotes without entering them all ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is 6 - 0?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)


This Site

Got a version of Word that uses the menu interface (Word 97, Word 2000, Word 2002, or Word 2003)? This site is for you! If you use a later version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the ribbon interface.

Videos
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.