aargh... footnote numbering

[sfzarrow]

I am trying to insert a footnote between two footnotes (e.g. new
footnoted sentence between 5 &6). What goes in is another number 1,
with no renumbering. I am using Word 2002 on XP. It is as if a
separate numbering system has started. I am not tracking changes.
Thanks for the help!

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

The usual reason for this is that the other footnotes are not "real" but
"fake" footnotes, and the usual reason for that is that the document has
been converted from WordPerfect.

 

[sfzarrow]

The document was created in Office's Word for Mac.

 

[sfzarrow]

The usual reason for this is that the other footnotes are not "real" but
"fake" footnotes, and the usual reason for that is that the document has
been converted from WordPerfect.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site:http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

The document was originally created in Office's Word for Mac.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Are you opening it on a PC or in MacWord? If the latter, you may want to
post to the NG specifically for Mac versions (starting at
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/community/community.aspx?pid=newsgroups). But
regardless of what the problem is, if you can't get the footnotes to
renumber properly, your only recourse may be to create new footnotes and
copy/paste the text from the existing ones into the new ones, then delete
the old ones.

Note, however, that if Track Changes is enabled, footnote numbering (any
numbering, in fact) will not be correct until you accept all the changes.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Starting over, since WordPerfect was not involved in the document. (By
the way, I have transferred docs with footnotes between Mac and PC many
times and this is not an inherent problem with MacWord)

Are you sure that the existing numbers are footnotes and not endnotes?
(or vice versa--are you sure you are inserting a footnote and not an
endnote?) Footnote and endnote sequences would be numbered differently,
and could explain this, and they look the same in Normal View.

Are you sure the existing numbers are real Word-created footnotes? Not
knowing how to use Word to create footnotes is more common than you
might think.

Document corruption could also explain this.
The first way to check for a corrupt document is to
copy the entire thing, *excluding* the last paragraph mark, into a new
document. That last paragraph mark holds a lot of information which can
get corrupted, and copying the text into a document with a fresh one
keeps your formatting, but can fix some glitches.

A paragraph mark is a ¶. Click on ¶ on the standard toolbar to show
nonprinting characters, including paragraph marks.

See this link for further info:

http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/AppErrors/CorruptDoc.htm

 

[sfzarrow]

Starting over, since WordPerfect was not involved in the document. (By
the way, I have transferred docs with footnotes between Mac and PC many
times and this is not an inherent problem with MacWord)

Are you sure that the existing numbers are footnotes and not endnotes?
(or vice versa--are you sure you are inserting a footnote and not an
endnote?) Footnote and endnote sequences would be numbered differently,
and could explain this, and they look the same in Normal View.

Are you sure the existing numbers are real Word-created footnotes? Not
knowing how to use Word to create footnotes is more common than you
might think.

Document corruption could also explain this.
The first way to check for a corrupt document is to
copy the entire thing, *excluding* the last paragraph mark, into a new
document. That last paragraph mark holds a lot of information which can
get corrupted, and copying the text into a document with a fresh one
keeps your formatting, but can fix some glitches.

A paragraph mark is a ¶. Click on ¶ on the standard toolbar to show
nonprinting characters, including paragraph marks.

See this link for further info:

http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/AppErrors/CorruptDoc.htm

By the way, the problem shows up when the document is opened up in
both Mac and PC. Since they show up at the bottom of each page,
doesn't that mean that they are footnotes, rather than endnotes? I've
cut and pasted the first paragraph on a new doc to see what would
happen & an inserted footnote disregards the old ones (it starts
numbering at 1)

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

By the way, the problem shows up when the document is opened up in
both Mac and PC. Since they show up at the bottom of each page,
doesn't that mean that they are footnotes, rather than endnotes? I've
cut and pasted the first paragraph on a new doc to see what would
happen & an inserted footnote disregards the old ones (it starts
numbering at 1)

If you are in Page Layout view, and they are at the bottom of the page,
then I guess they are footnotes--but were they created by Word, or
manually by the previous user? Did you check? If View>Footnotes is
grayed out, or you cannot double-click on the number to jump to the
note, they may not be.

And you are sure you are inserting a footnote? the dialog remembers the
previous setting.

Anyhow, I would just make a COPY of the document, and then run the
document through all the corruption fixes on both Mac and PC.

mac:
http://word.mvps.org/Mac/DocumentCorruption.html

Win:

http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/AppErrors/CorruptDoc.htm

 

[sfzarrow]

If you are in Page Layout view, and they are at the bottom of the page,
then I guess they are footnotes--but were they created by Word, or
manually by the previous user? Did you check? If View>Footnotes is
grayed out, or you cannot double-click on the number to jump to the
note, they may not be.

And you are sure you are inserting a footnote? the dialog remembers the
previous setting.

Anyhow, I would just make a COPY of the document, and then run the
document through all the corruption fixes on both Mac and PC.

mac:http://word.mvps.org/Mac/DocumentCorruption.html

Win:

http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/AppErrors/CorruptDoc.htm

They were created in the Mac version of Word, and they definitely are
footnotes since when you click on them they take you to the
corresponding footnote. We've pulled all the notes out & started
over, but it would be nice to know why this occurred so we can avoid
it in the future.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

We've pulled all the notes out & started
over, but it would be nice to know why this occurred so we can avoid
it in the future.

We don't know why it happens. Did you check to see if uncorrupting the
document fixed it? It seems to be some sort of corruption, so it would
have been nice to have that confirmed.