Footnotes and Endnotes

Footnotes are nice for your readers, so it’s good to use them for term papers, circulating drafts etc., but most journals want endnotes. Word makes some aspects of endnote formatting rather obscure, because the various options are divided between the Insert | Reference menu and the View menu.

• To see your notes: select View | Footnotes.
• To convert footnotes to endnotes or vice versa: from the menu, select Insert | Reference | Footnote | Convert.
• To change the appearance of footnotes and endnotes, you can just modify the appropriate built-in styles.

It's also tricky to get endnotes in the proper place in your paper, i.e. after the text and before the references. Here's the method I use:

1. Select Insert | Reference | Footnote. From the Endnotes dropdown list, choose End of Section. While you’re at it, make sure the Number Format is what you want. Click OK.
2. In the text where you want the notes to go, type a heading, e.g. “Notes”. If you want a page break before the notes, it should go before this heading.
3. Position the cursor at the beginning of the next line.
4. Select Insert | Break. Under Section Breaks, choose Continuous.
5. To remove the endnote separator (the line which divides notes from text): select View | Footnotes. From the drop-down list in the top left of the note window, select Endnote Separator. Delete the separator. (Normally you don’t want a separator for endnotes.)