Viewing Footnotes and Endnotes

Word implements a full-featured footnote and endnote system that allows you total control over where and how footnotes and endnotes are printed. If you are viewing your document in Print Layout view, the footnotes or endnotes appear in your document the same as any other text—at the place where they are configured to appear on the printout.

If you are viewing your document in Draft view, footnotes and endnotes are not normally visible. Word opens the Footnotes or Endnotes window at the bottom of the document window whenever you insert a footnote or endnote in this view. Most users, when they are through entering the note text, close the window so they will be able to see more of their document at once. If you later want to view the footnotes or endnotes window, you can display the References tab of the ribbon and click Show Notes in the Footnotes group. This displays the Footnotes or Endnotes window. You can then make changes to footnotes or endnotes in the window if you so desire.

If you have both footnotes and endnotes defined in the same document, Word will ask you to indicate which you want to view prior to displaying the Footnotes or Endnotes window. All you need to do is select which one you want to view, and then click your mouse on OK.

Once the Footnotes or Endnotes window is displayed, you can select which type of notes are displayed in the window. You do this by using the drop-down Footnotes control at the top of the window to select what you want displayed. If you choose All Footnotes, then the footnotes are displayed; choosing All Endnotes displays all the endnotes for your document.

To close the footnotes window, you can either click your mouse on the Close button at the top of the Footnotes window, or you can again choose Footnotes from the View menu.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (10760) 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: Viewing Footnotes and Endnotes.