How to Insert and Manage MS Word Footnotes and Endnotes

Ms Word footnotes and endnotes are important when you’re writing a long technical document with references. MS Word 2010 has nice features that make inserting “footers” and “enders” a pleasure indeed.

This feature has not changed since MS Word 2007. So if you know how to insert footnotes and endnotes in a MS Word 2007 document, you’ll find the following description very straight forward.

First, select the REFERENCES tab on the Ribbon and click the tiny square on the lower-right corner of the FOOTNOTES section to display the FOOTNOTE AND ENDNOTE dialog box:

• Here are some of the features of this great utility:

  You can insert either footnotes or endnotes, or both, with (hopefully) different numbering formats.

• At any time, you can convert all footnotes into endnotes, and vice-versa.
• You can insert footers either at the bottom of each page or the whole document.
• You can insert endnotes either at the end of the document or the end of the section.
• You can copy and paste a marking from one location in the text to another. The footers and enders adjust themselves seamlessly and automatically.

Use the shortcut ALT + CTRL + F to insert a footnote and ALT + CTRL + D to insert an endnote.
You can use SYMBOLS to mark your footers and endnotes. Click the SYMBOL button, select a symbol and then click OK.

As you continue to add footers to a page, MS Word 2010 adjust the necessary space automatically and pushes some text from the bottom of the page to the NEXT PAGE, if necessary, to make room for the new footnotes.

When you add a new footer IN BETWEEN two existing footers, MS Word 2010 is smart enough to RE-NUMBER both the footer marks and the footers themselves.

The best way to learn how this feature works is to take a sample text and play around with it by inserting all kinds of footers and endnotes.

Here is the result of one such episode:

(Click the image to enlarge it)