Adding Endnotes in Text Boxes

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated October 10, 2020)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003

Gayle edits scientific reports and proposals at her company. Due to page-count issues, she often inserts figure captions into text boxes to place them next to the figure (to save space). She is not able to insert endnote references into the text boxes, but would like to.

Word does not allow the insertion of either footnotes or endnotes into text boxes. You can, however, insert them into frames. A frame is a document object that has been around since the very earliest days of Word, but they received less and less attention since the introduction of text boxes. In many ways they are very similar to text boxes, but there are some differences (such as how they handle endnotes).

To convert a text box to a frame, simply

Right-click the text box and choose Format Text Box from the resulting Context menu. Word displays the Format Text Box dialog box.
Make sure that the Text Box tab is selected. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. The Text Box tab of the Format Text Box dialog box.

Click on the Convert to Frame button. Word asks if you are sure you want to convert.
Click on OK.

Now you can insert your desired endnotes into the frame with no problem.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (3416) 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...

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What is four more than 7?

2020-11-17 20:53:31

Paul

There is another work around (really a trick). Place the footnote marker at the end of the text immediately before the text box and change its font color to white (or the background colour) making it invisible. Then add the footnote number at the required reference point in the text box and format it to superscript. The reader will then see it as a footnote and the footnote numbering in the document will be preserved.

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