Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Word in Microsoft 365. 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 Separator.

Changing the Footnote Continuation Separator

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated April 22, 2023)

If you have a very long footnote that won't entirely fit in the space allocated for footnotes on the current page, Word automatically continues the footnote on the following page. In these cases, you can specify that Word use a different footnote separator to indicate that the footnotes are a continuation from the previous page. To change the continuation separator, follow these steps:

Make sure you are viewing your document in Draft view. (Display the View tab of the ribbon and click Draft in the Views group.)
Display the References tab of the ribbon.
Click Show Notes.
If you have both footnotes and endnotes defined in your document, Word displays the Show Notes dialog box. (In some versions of Word it may be called the View Notes or View Footnotes dialog box.) (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. The Show Notes dialog box.

Click on the View Footnote Area radio button.
Click on OK.
Using the Footnotes drop-down list at the top of the Footnotes window, choose Footnote Continuation Separator. The current separator appears in the window.
Change or delete the separator, as desired.
When you are satisfied with the appearance of the separator, click on Close.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (11775) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Word in Microsoft 365. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Changing the Footnote Continuation Separator.

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. Learn more about Allen...

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