Word Processing

Unit 3: Advanced Word Processing Techniques

Lesson 9: Navigating the Word Processor More Effectively

How do you create and manage footnotes and endnotes?

Footnotes are useful for documenting references in research papers, and for adding comments that are subordinate to the main ideas in your document. Footnotes are displayed at the bottom of the page where they are referenced.

Endnotes contain the same type of information you will find in footnotes, but they are physically grouped at the end of the document.

Microsoft Word provides support for adding footnotes or endnotes to your document. If you want to include both footnotes and endnotes, Word will autonumber the footnotes 1,2,3 ... and the endnotes i,ii,iii ....

Creating a footnote or endnote. Inserting a footnote into a document leaves a reference in the document to the footnote called a footnote mark. The footnote mark can be a number or symbol. The footnote illustrated above shows a numbered footnote.

To insert a footnote into your document:

Set or make sure the cursor is at the point you want your footnote to be referenced.

Choose the Footnote... command from the Insert menu. This will bring up the Footnote and Endnote dialog box.
Select footnote or endnote.
Select the style you want (AutoNumber or Custom Mark). If you select a Custom Mark footnote, you will need to enter the mark (*, +, etc.).
Click OK and you will be prompted to enter the contents of your footnote/endnote.
Enter the contents of your footnote/endnote. The contents can be formated with the regular text formatting commands.
When you are finished entering your footnote/endnote, click on the Close button to continue.

Deleting a footnote. To delete a footnote, highlight the footnote mark and choose Cut from the Edit menu, or press the Backspace key.

Copying a footnote. To copy a footnote, highlight the footnote mark and choose Copy from the Edit menu. Position the insertion point to the new location and choose Paste from the Edit menu.

Moving a footnote. To move a footnote, highlight the footnote mark and choose Cut from the Edit menu. Position the insertion point to the new location and choose Paste from the Edit menu.

Note that when you delete, copy or move a footnote Word automatically reorders footnotes so the contents of a footnote always appears at the bottom of the page where it is referenced. Word also makes sure numerical footnote marks stay sequential.

When working with footnotes you need to be aware of the different view options there are for your document. The two different view options are Normal view and Page Layout view. If you have selected to view your document in Normal view, your footnotes may not be visible in the main document window; they may optionally appear in your document in a separate window pane. In Page Layout view your footnotes appear at the bottom of the document as they will when you print it. To control the display of footnotes in Normal view, the Footnotes option on the View menu toggles the display of the footnote pane.