footnote and blan spcaes between foornotes cannot be deleted

[Reza]

I have a document with many footnotes. There are blank
spaces between footnotes 6 and 9. I can not delete them
and make the footnotes numbering continuous. It tells
me "This is not a valid action for footnote." There are
no footnotes 7 and 8 in the main document. Furthermore, If
I delete a footnote in the document the text of the
footnote does not automatically disapprea. I have to
delete it manually which then the software gives me the
same message as above. If I insert a footnote after
footnote 6, it numbers it as number 9 rather 7 but it
automatically changes the numbering for the rest, the old
9 becomes 10 and so on. I have no idea what's going on.
Please help.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Sometimes you can use Backspace when Delete won't work.

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

 

[Dayo Mitchell]

Turn on NonPrinting Characters (click ¶ on the standard toolbar) which will
help you see what is really going on. You can delete text in a note but not
the gray ¶ at the end of the note, which holds information for Word.

But, the problem is Word thinks notes 7 and 8 are there (and is leaving a
space for them), and you don't. Could they be Hidden in some way? I would
do some experimenting ***on a copy***--see if converting footnotes to
endnotes kicks Word into behaving. Perhaps try deleting the entire
paragraph with the problematic numbers and retyping it, as a last resort.

Try copying everything except the last ¶ in the doc to a new doc, as that
mark holds complex formatting. That Word won't let you delete other notes
suggests corruption across the doc, not just with these two notes, and
that's the first fix for a corrupt doc. If you have sections, do same thing
for each section, instead of for entire doc. Try this method for just the
paragraphs with the problematic invisible notes.

You are trying to delete notes by selecting the number in the *main text*
and deleting that, right? That's the proper way.

If you are deleting notes while Tracking Changes, that seems to get a little
complicated, and causes number confusion. Accepting all Changes fixes that.
I don't know whether using Cross-References could cause Word to get confused
when you start deleting.

Hope some of this brainstorming helps, or become unnecessary.

DM

 

[Reza]

Dear Mitchell,
Thank you for your help. What worked was copying the whole
document except the last ¶ in a blank document. It is now
working like a charm. Great Brainstorming.
Reza

 

[Dayo Mitchell]

Glad you fixed it.

Dayo

Dear Mitchell,
Thank you for your help. What worked was copying the whole
document except the last ¶ in a blank document. It is now
working like a charm. Great Brainstorming.
Reza

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I find that it is almost always possible to remove these extra empty
paragraphs. If you select the paragraph mark and press Delete, you will get
a message that "This is not a valid action for footnotes." But if you put
the insertion point at the beginning of the paragraph and press Backspace
*or* at the end of the previous (footnote) paragraph and press Delete, the
extra paragraph will be deleted without demur.

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