Footnote Continuation Notice - Paragraph Mark

[Chartreuse]

Hi, is there any way to get rid of the paragraph mark from a footnote
continuation notice in Word 2007? I don't usually use this feature, but I'm
formatting a paper for someone that had continuation notices, then they
decided they no longer wanted them. I am able to delete the text, but the
empty paragraph mark remains. It seems the only way to get rid of it is to
copy the entire contents of the document and paste it into a new blank
document. It just seems like there should be a better way to get rid of it.
Am I missing something? If not, was this the case in earlier versions of
Word as well? Thanks in advance for any information.

 

[Stefan Blom]

No, you cannot delete the paragraph mark in the footnote continuation
notice, but you can make it very small (1 pt), and set the line spacing
to 1 pt, and spacing before and after to zero.

--
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP


in message
news:[email protected]...

 

[Chartreuse]

Hi, Stefan, thanks for your response. I was kind of afraid there was no way
to delete it since I had tried just about everything. I guess it's not that
big a deal, just kind of annoying since it seems like all you have to do is
choose the option once, and that paragraph mark is stuck there. Your
suggestion of making it 1pt with 0 spacing is a good workaround, though.
Thanks again!

 

[Stefan Blom]

You are welcome.

--
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP


in message

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I have been pointing this out as a bug ever since the Footnote Continuation
Notice was introduced. The only way you can back out of it when you change
your mind is by using Undo immediately or, as you point out, by copying
everything into a fresh document. Word 2002 introduced a further annoyance:
the same thing happens with headers and footers: if you ever touch the
header or footer, even if you decide to leave it blank, you end up with an
empty paragraph that can't be deleted. Perhaps somewhere down the line these
bugs will be fixed, but they're very low-priority because they don't cause
Word to crash with loss of data.

 

[Chartreuse]

Hi, Suzanne, thanks for your response. I just tried recreating the footnote
continuation notice problem and hit undo right after I chose the option, but
that paragraph mark still seems to stick. Actually, it doesn't even seem
to appear in the undo list at all. It's like Word dosen't even see it as
something to undo. I've tried this in both Word 2007 and Word 2003. Are you
able to undo it in these versions?

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

It's been years since I tried this at all--in whatever version the feature
first appeared in--and I can't guarantee that Undo worked even then; perhaps
I just closed without saving. But I think perhaps if you backed up several
steps beyond the insertion of the notice?

 

[Chartreuse]

Hi, thanks once again for your response. I recreated the problem in a new
document and tried undoing all the steps I had done before I inserted the
notice but still the paragraph mark remains. I tried this with both Word
2007 and 2003. It really is one of the stranger things I've come across.
It's almost like it becomes hardcoded into the page or something, but yet it
disappears if I do a regular cut and paste of the entire document into a new
blank document. Very interesting. I haven't seen anything in the Knowledge
Base about it. Maybe they'll fix it someday, but as you said it's probably a
low priority on their list.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Another reason it's low-priority is that most users reasonably figure that
readers can usually figure out that a footnote is continued on the next
page, especially if it ends mid-sentence, so no continuation notice is
required.