Endnotes by Chapter

David has a book manuscript that consists of twenty chapters. Each chapter is in its own document file, and each chapter has its own endnotes. He would like to create one large, single document file for the manuscript, with the endnotes properly separated by chapter at the end, and renumbered from 1-X in each endnote section, as they are now.

This can be done rather easily, as Word allows you to specify that endnotes should appear at one of two places in a document: either the end of each section or at the end of the document itself. Follow these general steps:

1. Create a new, blank document.
2. Define the layout for the new document to match whatever layout you want for your book. (Set margins, orientation, etc.)
3. Display the References tab of the ribbon.
4. Click the small icon at the lower-right corner of the Footnotes group. Word displays the Footnote and Endnote dialog box.
5. Make sure the Endnotes radio button is selected. (See Figure 1.)



Figure 1. The Footnote and Endnote dialog box.

6. Change the drop-down list at the right of the Endnotes radio button to End of Section.
7. Change the Start At value to 1.
8. Change the Numbering drop-down list to Restart Each Section.
9. Click Apply.
10. Insert your first chapter file. (Display the Insert tab of the ribbon, click the down-arrow at the right of the Object tool within the Text group, and then choose Text from File.)
11. Insert a section break at the end of the chapter file you just inserted.
12. Insert your next chapter file after the section break.
13. Repeat steps 11 and 12 for each of your remaining chapter files.

What you end up with is each chapter divided by sections breaks, with the endnotes configured to appear at the end of each section. Numbering of the endnotes will begin at 1 in each section.

The only time this approach will present a problem is if you have section breaks within a chapter. For instance, if you switch from a one-column to a two-column layout within a chapter, then the layout change requires the insertion of a section break. Since endnotes are configured to appear at the end of each section, that means you may have endnotes that appear at the end of your one-column layout and then at the end of the section that marks the end of the chapter. This is probably not what you want.

You can suppress the endnotes for some sections in your document (such as the first part of the chapter, before the layout change), but that presents additional problems with numbering. Since numbering is designed to start at 1 for each section, you may end up with two (or more) endnotes numbered "1" in a single chapter. You can get around this by applying continuous endnote numbering for the entire document, instead of restarting the number in each section.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (6099) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Word in Microsoft 365. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Endnotes by Chapter.