Using Multiple References to the Same Footnote

Word includes a feature that allows you to add footnotes and endnotes to your documents. This can come in real handy for some type of scholarly or scientific documents. In some instances, however, you may have a need for a single footnote to have multiple references within a document. For example, some scientific journals require that footnotes not be repeated, but that the same footnote reference be repeated within the main text, and that the references go to a single footnote. Thus, the document may have many occurrences of the same footnote reference.

Normally, Word allows only a one-to-one relationship between footnote references and footnotes. If you have a need for multiple references to the same footnote, this doesn't help you. Instead, you should follow these steps:

1. Insert your first (primary) footnote as normal.
2. Position the insertion point in the document where you want the secondary reference to the footnote.
3. Display the References tab of the ribbon.
4. Click the Cross-reference tool in the Captions group. Word displays the Cross-reference dialog box. (See Figure 1.)



Figure 1. The Cross-reference dialog box.

5. Using the Reference Type drop-down list, choose Footnote. Word displays a list of footnotes in the dialog box.
6. Using the Insert Reference To drop-down list, choose Footnote Number (Formatted).
7. Select the footnote you want used for this reference.
8. Click Insert. The cross-reference is inserted.
9. Click on Close to dismiss the Cross-reference dialog box.

That's it. You now have a secondary footnote reference to an existing footnote. There is one other thing to keep in mind: If you add new footnotes after following the above steps, the footnote references are automatically updated, but the cross-reference fields are not. To update those you'll need to update the cross-reference fields. The easiest way to do this is to press Ctrl+A (which selects the entire document) and then press F9 (which updates all the fields in the document).

Finally, realize that this works great for traditional footnotes destined for printed documents. If your footnotes are intended to be used in a hyperlinked environment, then this might not be quite what you want. In a hyperlinked environment, someone can hold down the Ctrl key while using the mouse to click on a footnote reference, and they are taken to the actual footnote. All you've done by following the steps above is to insert a cross-reference to an existing footnote reference. So, holding down Ctrl and clicking on the cross-reference will take you to the primary footnote reference, not to the footnote itself. To get there, you'll need to Ctrl+Click again, this time on the primary footnote reference.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (12153) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Word in Microsoft 365. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Using Multiple References to the Same Footnote.