Formatting Footnote and Endnote References

David writes for journals, and those journals require that footnote or endnote references be placed within parentheses and separate multiple sequential references by commas, as in (1,3,4,5,9). He wondered if there was a way to modify how Word inserts these references so that they automatically meet the criteria of the journals for which he writes.

The answer, David, is yes and no. Yes, you can modify some of the default characteristics of the footnote or endnote reference. For instance, you can make it so that they are not superscripted, or you can modify them so they are bold or a different typeface. All you have to do is modify the style that Word uses to define how footnote and endnote references appear. In the case of footnote references, you would modify the built-in style called "Footnote Reference." Likewise, for the endnote references, you would modify the "Endnote Reference" style.

Now for the bad news: You cannot modify anything about how Word inserts references other than what you can modify in the above-mentioned styles. This means that you cannot instruct Word to automatically place parentheses around the references, nor to separate them by commas. You can, however, create a macro to insert the first reference with its attendant parentheses. The following macro inserts parentheses at the insertion point, and then inserts a footnote between them:

Sub FootNt()
    Selection.TypeText Text:="()"
    Selection.MoveLeft Unit:=wdCharacter, _
      Count:=1
    ActiveDocument.Footnotes.Add _
      Range:=Selection.Range, Reference:=""
End Sub

Between the style changes and the macro, most of the work of correctly formatting your references is completed. The only thing you need to do is manually insert a comma and the next references if you have multiple sequential references.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (9720) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Formatting Footnote and Endnote References.