Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Word in Microsoft 365, and 2021. 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: Changing the Footnote Separator.

Changing the Footnote Separator

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated October 14, 2023)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Word in Microsoft 365, and 2021

If you are using footnotes in Word, you have control over where they appear in your document. In other issues of WordTips you learned that you can place them at the end of the text on a page or at the bottom of the page itself. Regardless of the placement, Word can print a separator between your main document text and the footnotes. The default separator is a solid line, but you can either change or delete the footnote separator as desired.

To change the footnote separator, follow these steps:

Make sure you are viewing your document in Draft view. (Display the View tab of the ribbon and click Draft in the Views group.)
Display the References tab of the ribbon.
Click the Show Notes tool.
If you have both footnotes and endnotes defined in your document, Word displays the Show Notes dialog box. (See Figure 1.) (In some versions of Word it may be called the View Notes or View Footnotes dialog box.)

Figure 1. The Show Notes dialog box.

Click on the View Footnote Area radio button.
Click on OK.
Using the Footnotes drop-down list at the top of the Footnotes window, choose Footnote Separator. Word displays the current separator in the window.
Change or delete the separator, as desired.
When you are satisfied with the appearance of the separator, click on Close.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (6033) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Word in Microsoft 365, and 2021. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Changing the Footnote Separator.

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 eight more than 4?

2024-01-09 06:17:55

Alison Pauline Allen

Thank you! I think I've been trying to resolve this for an hour. Finally, instructions that relate to what I see on my screen. Fixed.

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