Restarting Footnote Numbering after Page Breaks

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated November 27, 2023)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021

Elsen is working on his dissertation, and the style he must follow requires that footnote numbers restart at 1 after each page break. Elsen wonders how he can make sure that Word restarts the footnote numbering as he needs.

This is relatively easy to do in Word. Here's how:

Display the References tab of the ribbon.
Click the small icon at the lower-right corner of the Footnotes group. Word displays the Footnote and Endnote dialog box. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. The Footnote and Endnote dialog box.

Change the Start At value to 1.
Change the Numbering drop-down list to Restart Each Page.
If your document has multiple sections in it (as implemented by adding section breaks), use the Apply Changes To drop-down list to specify whether you want this numbering scheme to apply to the entire document or just the current section.
Click Apply.
Click Cancel to close the Footnote and Endnote dialog box.

The result is that your footnotes should start over, at 1, for each page in your document.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (13682) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021.

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...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Exploded Pie Chart Sections

Want to change the groupings used by Excel when it creates pie charts? Your options are limited, as you learn in this tip.

Discover More

Applying Consistent Shading to a Table

Formatting tables can be very time consuming. When you get a document from another person, you can spend a lot of time ...

Discover More

Spelling Out Page Numbers

If your document is more than a couple of pages long, adding page numbers is a nice finishing touch. If you want, you can ...

Discover More

Comprehensive VBA Guide Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) is the language used for writing macros in all Office programs. This complete guide shows both professionals and novices how to master VBA in order to customize the entire Office suite for their needs. Check out Mastering VBA for Office 2010 today!

More WordTips (ribbon)

Footnotes for Chapters

Word allows you to add footnotes to your documents and configure how they are numbered. Sometimes the numbering can get a ...

Discover More

Getting Rid of Extra Spaces at the End of a Footnote

If you use Find and Replace to get rid of trailing spaces in a paragraph, you may have noticed that it doesn't work ...

Discover More

Automatically Applying Custom Styles to Footnotes

Word is great in that it allows you to create styles that define how you want your text to appear. If you spend a great ...

Discover More

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.

Notify me about new comments ONLY FOR THIS TIP

Notify me about new comments ANYWHERE ON THIS SITE

Hide my email address

What is 1 + 0?

2023-11-27 04:40:57

Kiwerry

@Ler: Strange. Your comment piqued my curiosity, so I created a document two pages long in Word (365) with a footnoted word on each page. When I switched from "Continuous" to "Restart Each Page" and clicked "Apply", the numbering changed as expected. I suspected it might depend on whether the footnotes were placed below the text or at the foot of the page, but that made no difference; the numbering still changed as expected.

2021-06-18 10:13:20

Ler

This did not work for me. The footnotes' numbering remains continuous throughout the whole document, even though "Restart Each Page" and "Whole Document" are selected.

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.