Column notes in word

Footnotes or endnotes in the document must be formatted according to the requirements accepted by your college, university, company, established on the project, etc.

The number or symbol inserted in the document content to refer to a footnote or endnote is called a reference mark. Footnotes appear on the same page as their reference marks, and endnotes appear at the end of the document or section (see more about their customization below). In most views, footnotes or endnotes are separated from the body text by a note separator line (see how to change a note separator line).

The numbering is always correct if you insert footnotes or endnotes using the Word’s Footnote and Endnote functionality. Even after changes are made to the document, Word automatically moves the footnotes to the correct page and renumbers them accordingly.

Note: You can use footnotes and endnotes in the same document.

Insert a Footnote or Endnote

Word offers several useful features to insert footnotes and endnotes. You can:

Note: To reference a single footnote or endnote multiple times in the document text with the automatic numbering, you can use cross-references.

Insert the Footnote using the Insert Footnote button

To insert the Footnote with the format used by default (Word’s default format or last saved format for the footnotes in the document), do the following:

   1.   Place the cursor where you want to insert the reference to the footnote.

   2.   On the References tab, in the Footnotes group, click the Insert Footnote button:

   3.   Enter what you need in the footnote. You can modify text style, size, color as you want using the same features as for the regular text:

Note: See how to format footnotes and endnotes for more details.

   4.   Double-click the number or symbol at the beginning of the footnote to return to the place in the document where you inserted a reference mark.

Insert the Endnote using the Insert Endnote button

To insert the Endnote with the format used by default (Word’s default format or last saved format for the endnotes in the document), do the following:

   1.   Place the cursor where you want to insert the reference to the endnote.

   2.   On the References tab, in the Footnotes group, click the Insert Endnote button:

Word inserts the endnote at the end of the document with the format used by default (superscript number of the i, ii, iii, … numbered list). The cursor is positioned next to the inserted endnote. E.g.:

   3.   Enter what you need in the endnote.

Note: See how to format footnotes and endnotes for more details.

   4.   Double-click the number or symbol at the beginning of the endnote to return to the place in the document where you inserted a reference mark.

Insert the Footnote and Endnote using shortcut keys

You can use the following keyboard shortcuts to insert footnotes and endnotes in a Microsoft Word document:

• Press Alt+Ctrl+F to insert a footnote.
• Press Alt+Ctrl+D to insert an endnote.

Insert the Footnote and Endnote with custom format

To insert the Footnote and Endnote in the document with the custom format, do the following:

   1.   Place the cursor where you want to insert the reference to the footnote or endnote.

   2.   On the References tab, in the Footnotes group, click the dialog box launcher:

   3.   In the Footnote and Endnote dialog box:

• In the Location section:
  • Select Footnotes and the location:
    • Bottom of page (used by default)
    • Below text – if there is a space between text and a bottom margin on the page, it can be placed right after text. For example:

    

  • Select Endnotes and the location:
    • End of section
    • End of document (used by default)

    To insert endnotes at the end of each chapter or other parts in the document, add a section break (see how to work with breaks in Word) for each chapter or part and select the End of section option.

  • Click the Convert… button to convert all footnotes to endnotes, or vice versa (see converting footnotes and endnotes below).
• In the Footnote layout section (available only if the Footnote is selected in the Location section), select the layout from the Columns dropdown list.

  As for the regular text, Word offers to create columns for the footnotes and endnotes.

  • Match section layout – use the same number of columns as the document text
  • 1 column
  • 2 column
  • 3 column
  • 4 column

  For example:

  • Match section layout:

    

  • 1 column:

    
• In the Format section:
  • Choose the format you need from the Number format dropdown list:

    

    • 1, 2, 3, … (used by default for footnotes)
    • a, b, c, …
    • A, B, C, …
    • i, ii, iii, … (used by default for endnotes)
    • I, II, III, …
    • *, †, ‡, §, …
  • Type the Custom mark or select it by clicking the Symbol… button to open the Symbol dialog box:

    

    Select the symbol you need in the Symbol dialog box and click the OK button.

    In English, a footnote or endnote is usually indicated by a superscript number immediately following the text or phrase to which the note refers. For some requirements, a superscript number should be placed between parentheses, for example: ^[1].

    Note: We strongly recommend checking the requirements you need to follow. For example:

    • The Chicago style allows using symbols, such as the asterisk (*) or the dagger (†), instead of numbers if there are a few footnotes in the document (see how to add different reference marks for more details).
    • The American Psychological Association (APA) style and Modern Language Association (MLA) style don’t recommend using symbols as footnote identifiers.
  • Optionally, select the number you need to start numbering in the Start at field.

    For example, if you have several documents containing different chapters or parts of the voluminous project, you can start footnotes from a specific number in the current document.

  • From the Numbering dropdown list, select one of the options:
    • Continuous (used by default)
    • Restart each section
    • Restart each page
• In the Apply changes section, from the Apply changes to dropdown list, select one of the options:
  • This section
  • Whole document

   4.   Enter the text you need in the footnote or endnote:

   5.   Double-click the number or symbol at the beginning of the note to return to the document content.

Converting Footnotes and Endnotes

Word can convert footnotes to endnotes, and vice versa:

• To convert one footnote to an endnote, right-click the footnote, then click Convert to Endnote in the popup menu:

  
• To convert one endnote to a footnote, right-click the endnote, then click Convert to Footnote in the popup menu.
• To convert all footnotes to endnotes or convert all endnotes to footnotes, do the following:

     1)   Right-click any of the footnotes or endnotes, then select Note Options… in the popup menu:

  

     2)   In the Footnotes and Endnotes dialog box, click the Convert… button:

  

     3)   In the Convert Notes dialog box, choose the option you need:

  

  • Convert all footnotes to endnotes (is active if there is at least one footnote in the document)
  • Convert all endnotes to footnotes (is active if there is at least one endnote in the document)
  • Swap footnotes and endnotes (is active if there are at least one footnote and one endnote in the document)

Select all footnotes in the document

To select all footnotes in the document, click inside any footnote, then press Ctrl+A.

To select all endnotes in the document, click inside any endnote, then press Ctrl+A:

Edit and move footnotes and endnotes

To edit a footnote or endnote, click inside the note and make corrections.

To move a footnote or endnote from one location in the document to another, do the following:

   1.   Select the reference mark in the document.

   2.   Do one of the following to cut the selection:

• On the Home tab, in the Clipboard group, click the Cut button:

  

• Right-click the selection and choose Cut in the popup menu.
• Press Ctrl+X.

   3.   Place the cursor in the new location.

   4.   Do one of the following to paste selection:

• On the Home tab, in the Clipboard group, click the Paste button.
• Right-click and choose Paste in the popup menu.
• Press Ctrl+V.

Word moves the reference mark and the note to the correct place; also, it renumbers footnotes and endnotes.

Move among footnotes and endnotes

To move among footnotes and endnotes, on the References tab, in the Footnotes group, click the Next Footnote button, then select one of the options:

Notes:

1. To move to the next footnote, you can just click the Next Footnote button in the Footnotes group on the Reference tab.
2. See more about navigating in the document.

Display footnotes or endnotes

To display the note’s content in the Word document, do one of the following:

• On the References tab, in the Footnotes group, click the Show Notes button to display the list of footnotes or endnotes:

  

  If there are footnotes and endnotes in the document, Word asks which type of notes you want to see:

  

• Double-click a reference mark in the document’s body to display its corresponding footnote or endnote.

Note: If you hover the mouse over a reference mark in the document text, a tooltip appears with a full footnote or endnote text, so you don’t need to scroll up and down to check footnotes and endnotes as you read or write:

Remove the Footnote and Endnote

To delete the footnote or endnote in the Word document, select its reference mark (number or symbol that refers to the footnote or endnote), and press the Delete key.

Note: If you delete the text and the number from the footnote or endnote pane, it does not delete the number in the document text itself. Word still thinks the deleted footnote or endnote is still active. You need to delete the original reference mark in the document.

After removing any note, Microsoft Word automatically renumbers the footnotes and endnotes.

In this article, there will be 2 tips to help you with inserting footnotes to multi-column pages in your Word document.

To insert a single footnote is easy, but it’s a different thing when you try to insert footnotes for a multi-column page. There are 2 main problems you may run into:

1. First, if only a part of your Word document is set in columns, when you insert a footnote for the rest part, such as the document title, you will see the text in columns will jump to next page, just as below:
2. Second, if you insert a footnote to a text in multi-column, then the footnote will be in columns, too.

The fact is you may want to have the footnote shown without being affected by columns.

If you ever had the above troubles, please read on to see how you can address them.

Tip 1: Modify “Layout Options”

The following steps are dedicated to fixing problem 1:

1. Firstly, open your Word and click “File” tab and click “Options” to open the “Word Options” dialog box open.
2. Then, click “Advanced”.
3. Next, scroll down to the end of the box to the “Compatibility options for” part.
4. And click “Layout Options”.
5. Then check “Lay out footnotes the way Word 6.x/95/97 does” box.
6. Last but not the least, click “OK” to save your modification.

Now, if you have previously inserted a footnote, you will find everything is back to normal now. Next time, you won’t have the same issue.

Tip 2: Use Cross-reference

1. To begin with, repeat the steps in tip 1 to change the layout options. And make sure you don’t insert a footnote for text now.
2. Then, if you want to insert a footnote “1” for a text in columns, you should now insert it somewhere outside the column text, say, behind the title. And the footnote content you type, the multiple letter “x” here, should be the words to illustrate the column text. After this, you can see the footnote in the normal way.
3. Next, place your cursor at the correct place where footnote “1” should actually goes.
4. Now, click “References” tab first.
5. Then click “Cross-reference” in “Captions” group.
6. In “Cross-reference” dialog box, choose “Footnote” for “Reference type” and “Footnote number” for “Insert reference to”.
7. Next, click to select the footnote you just create.
8. And click “Insert”. Close the dialog box when finish this.
9. Then go to select the footnote number “1” behind the title.
10. Right click and choose “Font”.
11. In “Font” dialog box, make sure “Font” tab is on.
12. Choose a font color which is the same as the document background color. Here we should choose “White”. Or you can check “Hidden” box to hide the number. Both operations make the number invisible.
13. Lastly, click “OK”.

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Author Introduction:

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Please Note:
This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Word in Microsoft 365. If you are using an earlier version (Word 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Word, click here: Footnotes in Two Columns.

Word includes the ability to place footnotes at the bottom of each page in your document. By default, the footnotes are placed into the same number of columns as you are using in the document. Thus, if your document uses two columns, then the footnotes will be placed into two columns, as well. In general, each of the footnotes appears under the same column in which the footnote reference appears.

Word 2013 added the ability to have your footnotes appear using a different number of columns than the main body of your text. (This is a huge formatting boon for those using footnotes.) Insert your footnotes as normal, but then follow these steps:

1. Display the References tab of the ribbon.
2. Click the small icon at the bottom-right of the Footnotes group. Word displays the Footnote and Endnote dialog box. (See Figure 1.)



Figure 1. The Footnote and Endnote dialog box.

3. Make sure that the Footnotes radio button is selected.
4. Use the Columns drop-down list to indicate how many columns you want Word to use to display the footnotes.
5. Click OK.

At this point Word reformats any existing footnotes so that they match whatever number of columns you specified in step 4. You don’t have any control over the width of the individual columns; Word makes them all of equal width.

If you are using an older version of Word and you want your footnotes to appear in a different number of columns than your document does (for instance, two columns of footnotes when the body is a single column), you are out of luck; Word can’t handle it. You could work around the problem by «faking» the footnotes, meaning to enter them manually (as regular text) and placing the notes themselves in a multi-column table placed at the bottom of the page. Of course, your footnotes won’t automatically renumber, and they won’t flow from page to page as you add or remove text from the body of the document.

If your desire is to have your footnotes in a single column while your text body is in multiple columns, the folks at the Word MVP site have come up with a workaround. You can find it here:

http://wordfaqs.ssbarnhill.com/FootnotesSpanColumns.htm

Author Bio

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…