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: Searching for Footnote and Endnote Marks.
Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated October 25, 2025)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003
If you don't know where a footnote or endnote reference is located in your document, you can use Word's powerful searching capabilities to find automatic footnote references. To search for a footnote, follow these steps:

Figure 1. The Find tab of the Find and Replace dialog box.
WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (1919) 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: Searching for Footnote and Endnote Marks.
 
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If you have a document that contains optional hyphens (special characters that mark where a word can be split between ...
Discover MoreSearching for text having (or not having) specific formatting is generally pretty easy. It is more difficult to search ...
Discover MoreWord allows you to search not for special characters that normally do not print such as paragraph marks and line breaks.
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