Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated May 22, 2021)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021
Alan has a document that contains many footnotes. These look just fine on-screen, but when he prints the document, the footnote numbers are missing. Alan wonders why would they appear on screen but not on paper.
It is probable that there are only two possible reasons this might happen, and both of them have to do with the how the footnote numbers are formatted. When you insert a footnote, Word automatically formats the reference number—both in the document itself and in the footnote area—using the Footnote Reference style. If you modify this style, you modify how the number appears. Assuming you already have footnotes in your document, follow these steps to pull up the definition for the Footnote Reference style:
Figure 1. The Style Pane Options dialog box.
Figure 2. The Modify Style dialog box for the Footnote Reference style.
Figure 3. The Font dialog box.
In steps 8 through 11 you checked the setting of the Hidden checkbox. It is possible, if the Footnote Reference style is formatted as Hidden text, that you can see the footnote numbers on the screen, but they won't print. This is because the display and printing of hidden text are handled independently from each other. Thus, it is possible to see text formatted as hidden, but have it not print, or vice versa. (This has been covered in other WordTips, here and here.)
Your decision in step 7 takes a bit more explanation. The default condition of the Footnote Reference style is that it will not have a specific font in the style definition. Instead, the style simply uses whatever font is used where the footnote reference number is inserted and makes that number superscript. If there is a font specified in the style definition (again, what you looked for in step 7), it is possible that the font is one that is not supported by your printer. Admittedly, this is a long shot, but it is one worth checking.
The easiest way to see if this is the source of the problem—if there is a font specified in the style definition—is to print your document on a different printer and see if the footnote numbers appear there. If they do, you will need to delete and reapply the Footnote Reference style. Follow these steps to do so:
Figure 4. Ready to replace.
In these steps, 1 through 4 were used to reset the Footnote Reference style (which got rid of the font specification you noted in step 7 of the previous steps), and steps 5 through 11 were used to reapply the Footnote Reference style to all of your footnote numbers.
WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (13861) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021.
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