Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016. 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 Continuation Notice.

Changing the Footnote Continuation Notice

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated December 28, 2022)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016


3

Word allows you to locate your footnotes in a couple different places in your document. Regardless of where you place footnotes, it is possible that a long footnote could overrun the space allocated for footnotes. In such an instance, Word automatically continues the footnote on the following page.

In these cases, you can specify that Word use special wording at the bottom of the footnote area to indicate that they are continued on the next page. For instance, you might want Word to print Continued on next page... at the bottom of any footnotes that will be split. To change the continuation notice, follow these steps:

  1. Make sure you are viewing your document in Draft view. (Click on the Draft icon on the status bar, or display the View tab of the ribbon and click Draft.)
  2. Display the References tab of the ribbon and click Show Notes (in the Footnotes group).
  3. If you have both footnotes and endnotes defined in your document, Word displays the View Footnotes dialog box (Word 2007) or the Show Notes dialog box (later versions of Word). Click the View Footnote Area radio button and then click on OK. (See Figure 1.)
  4. Figure 1. The View Footnotes dialog box.

  5. Using the Notes drop-down list at the top of the Footnotes pane, choose Footnote Continuation Notice. The current notice appears in the window. (Note that the notice might be originally blank, so you might not see anything in the window.)
  6. Change the notice as desired.
  7. When you are satisfied with the wording and appearance of the notice, close the Footnotes pane.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (11222) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Changing the Footnote Continuation Notice.

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

Displaying the Ruler

The ubiquitous ruler appears at the top of every Word document. It is so common place, that you may forget that it is ...

Discover More

Closing Documents after a Hyperlink

When you click a hyperlink that takes you to another document, Word dutifully opens the new document in its own window. ...

Discover More

Smushing Text Together

Word gives you control over how your text appears on the page. This includes adjusting how close letters are to each ...

Discover More

The First and Last Word on Word! Bestselling For Dummies author Dan Gookin puts his usual fun and friendly candor back to work to show you how to navigate Word 2013. Spend more time working and less time trying to figure it all out! Check out Word 2013 For Dummies today!

More WordTips (ribbon)

Viewing Footnotes and Endnotes

Footnotes and endnotes are normally visible with the rest of your document, but such visibility is dependant on which ...

Discover More

Using Cross-References in Footnotes

Need to make a cross-reference from one footnote to another footnote? You can do it if you throw bookmarks into the mix, ...

Discover More

Combining Footnotes

For some scholarly papers, you may have a need to concatenate all the footnotes in a paragraph into a single footnote at ...

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 2 + 2?

2019-08-29 16:26:15

David Small

If you don't want a footnote continuation notice, yet a blank line (TNR12 paragraph mark) appears in the footnote continuation notice, how do you delete it? It's messing up my page flow.


2017-03-26 16:45:45

Gary

Allen, you might also want to think about fixing the error in the comment validation question. "What is 7 + 8?" . Well you'd think the answer is 15. But apparently the system you're using doesn't agree. It wouldn't let me post a comment until I entered the 'correct' answer of 1.
Yes, 1, as in one.


2017-03-26 16:42:09

Gary

This doesn't work for me in Word 2016.

After some searching it looks like this feature was deprecated in Word 2013.
https://word.uservoice.com/forums/304924-word-for-windows-desktop-application/suggestions/12886041-restore-footnote-continuation-notice

Microsoft only acknowledge that they removed the continuation separator feature though (even though it still shows up in the Footnotes pane drop-down).
https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Discontinued-features-and-changed-functionality-in-Word-2013-5d3b898a-7923-4cd3-aff6-3d19e1767155#bkmk_footnoteseparator


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.