Footnote auto-numbering

[Student]

I am editing a document created by someone else. I
believe the document was created in Word 97 (not entirely
sure), but the document contains several hundred
footnotes. I am proposing to add additional footnotes,
but when I attempt to insert a footnote anywhere in the
document it starts at 1 and does not recognize the 100+
notes already existing. I tried the knowledge database
with no luck. I did try to delete all auto-numbered
footnotes hoping that all 100+ would be deleted and then
I could undo the deletion command, but none of the
footnotes deleted when I attempted that. This leads me
to believe that the footnotes were not created as auto-
numbered, and therefore are not recognized. Is there any
way to change the 100+ footnotes so that they are auto-
numbered and then I can proceed to add additional
footnotes without worrying about numbering?

 

[Wai]

Do you mean there are numbering of each footnote in your
doc, but when you insert some footnotes in between, the
numbering doesn't automatically update itself?

If that's what you mean, probably the reason is the
numbers are manually inputted (ie you type "1.", "2."
etc.), instead of clicking on "numbering" icon.

No automatic update will result if you number manually.

The only way to solve this problem is to:
1. delete all the manual numbers
2. select all the footnotes you wish to number (by using
Ctrl & Shift)
3. click on "numbering" icons.

 

[Guest]

Thank you for the tip, but that does not entirely solve
the problem. I changed the view to normal and selected
the option to view footnotes. Then in the split section
of the screen that shows the footnotes, I selected all of
the footnotes and then selected the numbering icon which
changed the numbers so that they were all in order. The
problem now is the cross reference number in the document
text did not update with the new footnote numbers. If I
trey to manually change the reference number in the text,
it does not allow that option with footnotes. Also, when
I attempt to add a new footnote in the middle of the
document, it starts with number 1 all over again.

 

[Tara]

Based on the fact that you could go to Normal view and
view the footnotes in the footnote pane, it does sound
like Word is recognizing them as footnotes but something
is definitely wrong with the numbering. It could be that
this document was created in a different word processing
program and didn't convert completely or someone has been
manually adjusting the footnotes. Here are a couple of
things to try & troubleshoot this:

1. Choose Insert, Footnote or Insert, Reference, Footnote
depending what version of Word you have. Make sure that
the numbering is set to continuous.

2. Try converting all footnotes to endnotes and then back
to footnotes to correct the numbering. You can do this by
selecting Insert, Footnote or Insert, Reference, Footnote
and choosing the Convert option. Select Convert all
footnotes to endnotes. Then repeat these steps and select
Convert all endnotes to footnotes.

Good luck!

 

[Wai]

Do you have a sample for it?
I would like to look into it, see if I can solve it.

 

[Guest]

Yes, I could send you a sample if you would like. I can e-
mail it if you provide me with an address. I belive that
it was originally created in WordPerfect (not sure what
version) and then converted to Word 97. I really think
that the converting of the document caused this lack of
recognition with the auto-numbering function in word. I
cannot seem to get Wordperfect version 11 to recognize
the formatting either though. Thanks for the offer.