Combining Footnotes

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated June 6, 2020)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021


1

Daniel has an academic paper that uses many footnotes. Right now, he has footnotes at the end of each sentence. He would like to combine all of the footnotes within a paragraph into a single footnote at the end of the paragraph. He wonders if there is a way to do this automatically.

There is no way to do this automatically, but you can do it with a macro. All the macro needs to do is to step through each paragraph in the document and see if it has any footnotes. Then, assuming it does, it concatenates those, deletes the footnotes, and adds a new footnote with the concatenated text at the end of the paragraph. Here's a macro that does just that:

Sub MoveFootnotes()
    Dim p As Paragraph
    Dim iFN As Integer
    Dim J As Integer
    Dim oCurPar As Object
    Dim sTemp As String

    For Each p In ActiveDocument.Paragraphs
        sTemp = ""
        iFN = p.Range.Footnotes.Count
        For J = iFN To 1 Step -1
            sTemp = p.Range.Footnotes(J).Range.Text & " " & sTemp
            p.Range.Footnotes(J).Delete
        Next J
        sTemp = Trim(sTemp)
        If sTemp > "" Then
            Set oCurPar = p.Range
            oCurPar.Collapse Direction:=wdCollapseEnd
            oCurPar.MoveEnd Unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=-1
            ActiveDocument.Footnotes.Add Range:=oCurPar, Text:=sTemp
        End If
    Next p
End Sub

Note that the macro concatenates the footnote text for each paragraph into the sTemp string. This is then used when adding the footnote to the end of the paragraph. This does present a drawback to the macro—it copies only text, not any formatting for the text.

For instance, if you have a bunch of footnotes that include citations to books, chances are good that those book titles are formatted in italic. After running the macro, the italic will be gone, though all the text is there. (There is no way that I'm aware of to transfer the formatting, intact, into the new footnote.)

Note:

If you would like to know how to use the macros described on this page (or on any other page on the WordTips sites), I've prepared a special page that includes helpful information. Click here to open that special page in a new browser tab.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (13767) 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. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Excel Charts in PowerPoint

A common place to use Excel charts is in your PowerPoint presentations. How you paste those charts into the presentation ...

Discover More

Calculating TV Time

In some industries it is necessary to work with time resolutions of less than a second. If you need to keep track of such ...

Discover More

Turning Off Track Changes Change Bars

Word includes a feature that allows you to track changes made to a document. One of the ways in which Word marks your ...

Discover More

Learning Made Easy! Quickly teach yourself how to format, publish, and share your content using Word 2013. With Step by Step, you set the pace, building and practicing the skills you need, just when you need them! Check out Microsoft Word 2013 Step by Step today!

More WordTips (ribbon)

Getting Rid of Hyperlinks in Footnotes

When you add hyperlinks to a document, Word makes them active, meaning you can click them to open the target of the ...

Discover More

Standardizing Note Reference Placement

Want to modify where an endnote or footnote reference appears in relation to the punctuation in a sentence? Here's a way ...

Discover More

Changing What Follows a Footnote Number

Word makes it easy to insert footnotes in your document. It doesn't, however, make it easy to change the format in which ...

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 0 + 7?

2020-06-08 13:24:29

Andrew

Here's the way I would do it, using the Clipboard to retain the formatting of each footnote's text, and permitting a specified separator text to be inserted between the original footnotes' text and a prefix to each footnote.

Sub CombineParagraphFootnotes()
Const Prefix As String = "Fn: " ' Set to "" to not have a prefix,
Const Separator As String = " " ' Set to "" to not have a separator.
Dim P As Paragraph
Dim CurNo As Integer
Dim AggregatedFootnote As Footnote

For Each P In ActiveDocument.Paragraphs
If P.Range.Footnotes.Count > 0 Then
' Add a new footnote to the end of the paragraph.
Set AggregatedFootnote = ActiveDocument.Footnotes.Add(Range:=P.Range) ' Here, "Range" parameter is the *paragraph's text*
' Loop backwards through the paragraphs footnotes, except the newly created last one
For CurNo = P.Range.Footnotes.Count - 1 To 1 Step -1
' Move the Footnote's formatted text to the beginning of the new footnote via Clipboard
AggregatedFootnote.Range.Select
Selection.Collapse Direction:=wdCollapseStart
P.Range.Footnotes(CurNo).Range.Cut
Selection.Paste
' Add Separator and Prefix.
AggregatedFootnote.Range.Select
Selection.Collapse Direction:=wdCollapseStart
If CurNo <> 1 Then Selection.InsertAfter Separator ' No Separator for first footnote (= last iteration).

Selection.InsertAfter Prefix
P.Range.Footnotes(CurNo).Delete
Next CurNo
End If
Next P
End Sub


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.