Center-column Footnotes

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated June 15, 2024)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003

Word has a powerful footnoting and endnoting system that allows you to place references of your choosing within your document and link them to footnotes or endnotes that can appear at a couple of different places in your document. Unfortunately, a "center column" is not one of the places you can automatically place footnotes. This precludes you from using footnotes to place references between columns of text, as is done in some editions of the Bible.

This does not mean that you cannot place your notes between columns, just that you cannot use Word to do it automatically. For instance, instead of using footnotes, you could manually place your "footnote" reference marks, and then manually place a simulated footnote in the center column. You, of course, would be responsible for figuring out placement on the page and controlling page breaking—not a trivial task, by any means.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (1484) 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. Learn more about Allen...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Extracting File Names from a Path

If you have a full path designation for the location of a file on your hard drive, you may want a way for Excel to pull ...

Discover More

Turning Off Figure Caption Numbering

Ever want to use Word's automatic figure captioning feature, without the numbering? While there isn't a way to make this ...

Discover More

Creating a Worksheet Copy by Default

Excel makes it relatively easy to copy worksheets to a different workbook. That doesn't mean it couldn't be made simpler ...

Discover More

The First and Last Word on Word! Bestselling For Dummies author Dan Gookin puts his usual fun and friendly candor back to work to show you how to navigate Word 2013. Spend more time working and less time trying to figure it all out! Check out Word 2013 For Dummies today!

More WordTips (menu)

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 ...

Discover More

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, ...

Discover More

Positioning the Footnote Separator

The Footnote Separator, as its name implies, separates the footnotes on each page from the text on that page. If the ...

Discover More

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.

Notify me about new comments ONLY FOR THIS TIP

Notify me about new comments ANYWHERE ON THIS SITE

Hide my email address

What is eight less than 8?

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.