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: Standardizing Note Reference Placement.

Standardizing Note Reference Placement

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated August 19, 2023)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Word in Microsoft 365, and 2021


It is not uncommon to use footnotes and endnotes in many types of documents. They appear regularly in scholarly papers, providing references and text ancillary to the main text. If you edit such papers, prepared by others, you may have a need to modify the placement of endnote or footnote references to be consistent with whatever style guidelines you are using. For instance, the author may have placed the references before punctuation (such as a period or comma) and you need the reference to be after the punctuation.

Fortunately, you can easily shift around the positioning of footnote and endnote references by using Word's Find and Replace feature. Follow these steps:

  1. Press Ctrl+H to display the Replace tab of the Find and Replace dialog box.
  2. If the More button is visible, click on it so that the full dialog box is displayed.
  3. Make sure the Use Wildcards check box is selected.
  4. In the Find What box, enter the following: (^2)([,.-])
  5. In the Replace With box, enter the following: \2\1
  6. Click either Find Next or Replace All, depending on how you want the replacements done.

The heart of this operation is the codes you enter in steps 4 and 5. The Find What codes define two groupings that you are looking for. Each grouping is surrounded by parentheses. The first grouping is the code ^2, which tells Word that you are looking for a note reference. When used with wildcard searches, this code will find both footnote and endnote references.

The second grouping consists of a pair of [brackets] within which you place the punctuation marks you want to move. In this case, a comma, period, and dash are included in the group. You can place any other punctuation mark in there that you want, except for an exclamation mark. The brackets surrounding the punctuation marks indicate to Word that you want to find a single occurrence of any of the characters within the brackets.

The result of this Find What sequence is that you want to find a note reference (endnote or footnote) followed by a single punctuation mark. If this is found, you want to replace it with what is in the Replace With box. The characters you enter there (step 5) indicate you want to replace what is found by the characters in the second group (the punctuation) followed by the characters in the first group (the note 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 (9631) 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: Standardizing Note Reference Placement.

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. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Changing Characters on Keyboard Keys

Want to assign some fancy characters to keyboard keys for characters you seldom use? There are a couple of ways you can ...

Discover More

Continuing Macro Lines

Program a macro, and you can easily find that some lines get very long. If you want to shorten the lines so they are more ...

Discover More

Determining if a Document is Corrupt

Think you might have a corrupt document? There is no easy way to tell if this is the case, but there are some things you ...

Discover More

Do More in Less Time! Are you ready to harness the full power of Word 2013 to create professional documents? In this comprehensive guide you'll learn the skills and techniques for efficiently building the documents you need for your professional and your personal life. Check out Word 2013 In Depth today!

More WordTips (ribbon)

Turning Off Printing of Document Properties

Getting to a printed document is often the entire purpose of using Word. The program, however, allows you to print out ...

Discover More

Formatting Footnote and Endnote References

Depending on whom you are writing for, you may want your footnote and endnote references to appear a specific way. Word ...

Discover More

Heavy-Duty Footnotes

Word allows you to add footnotes to a document, but they are rather straightforward and simple in their application. If ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is five less than 6?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)


This Site

Got a version of Word that uses the ribbon interface (Word 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the menu interface.

Videos
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.