footnotes

[bob holt]

I've always had trouble with footnotes in my Word X documents (running
OSX 10.3.5). Whenever I make a mistake or change my mind about a
footnote (in my book, started in Windows and transferred to Mac a couple of
years ago), I keep encountering the stern admonition, "Not a valid action for
footnotes." It's usually when I want to delete something, especially excess
empty lines! I have made several vain attempts to find the rules governing
footnotes and see if I could change them, but in vain. Is there any way to dig
into those rules?

Latest problem: A short,half-line footnote, taking off from a line near the
top of the page (so there's plenty of room for it) doesn't appear on the same
page but at the bottom of the next one! How can I get it to be on the page
where it belongs? "Help" doesn't recognize this as a problem.

 

[Clive Huggan]

Bob,

Footnote paragraphs do have slightly different behaviours than paragraphs in
the main document, usually in relation to paragraph marks. The one usually
encountered is the fact that the final paragraph mark in a footnote cannot
be deleted. But sometimes Word can get confused if you have been making many
changes, it seems. That includes applying formatting to a number of
footnotes (as distinct from italicizing or emboldening words within a
footnote) -- it's probably best to keep footnotes formatted only with
Footnote style (though one can modify the default style without any
problem). The exact reasons for this "sensitivity" are obscure (to me, at
any rate).

I've experienced your problem occasionally -- always in documents originated
in Windows (though many documents on which I work were created in Windows,
so the Windows factor *may* not be relevant -- though my suspicion is that
it is). Often the cause appeared to start with over-use of Track Changes by
several contributors and having Fast Saves (the setting from hell) ON in
preferences. In some cases I found that selecting the whole document EXCEPT
for the last paragraph mark (type Command-a, hold down the Shift key and hit
Left Arrow), copying it and pasting into a new blank document removed the
problem (it's the most-usually-successful method for removing document
corruption). Often, though, with intractable footnotes there was evidence of
changes of formatting etc applied within the footnote; then I had to select
the text of the footnote, copy or cut it, then paste into a new blank
document, delete the footnote reference number a new insert a new footnote
reference number. Then I selected the footnote text parked in the new blank
document WITHOUT its paragraph mark(s) (holding down the Command key and
clicking in the footnote text is the quickest way to do this), keyed
Control-spacebar to remove any manually applied formatting, copied that, and
pasted it into the footnote.

Try these ideas and post back, especially if you are successful, so that we
can all benefit from your feedback. If you aren't successful, we will need
more information from you. Tell us *exactly* what you mean by "when I make a
mistake or change my mind". What are you wanting to delete, and exactly how
are you doing it? (for example, are you seeking to select a paragraph mark
[key Command-8 to make them visible] in the footnote and delete it; is it
also impossible to delete an unselected paragraph mark with the Forward
Delete key?). Don't spare the detail!

Cheers,

Clive Huggan
Canberra, Australia
(My time zone is at least 5 hours different from the US and Europe,
so my follow-on responses to those regions can be delayed)
============================================================

--- SOME TIPS THAT MIGHT BE USEFUL ---

* WAIT FOR CONSIDERED ADVICE: If you post a question, keep re-visiting the
newsgroup for several days after the first response comes in. Sometimes it
takes a few responses before the best or complete solution is proposed;
sometimes you'll be asked for further information so that a better answer
can be provided. Good tips about getting the best out of posting are at
http://www.word.mvps.org/FindHelp/Posting.htm

* QUERY GOOGLE FIRST: Before posting your next question, search Google
Groups
(http://groups.google.com/advanced_group_search?q=group:*mac.office.word) --
the topic may have been comprehensively answered already.

* THE MS NEWS SERVER IS QUICKEST: If you connect directly to the Microsoft
news server (msnews.microsoft.com), you will see your replies within
minutes; going through your ISP's news server could take much longer, and
web-based access can also be slow -- often 8 hours, and up to several days.
For settings for the MS news server, see www.entourage.mvps.org

* POST BACK TO THE NEWSGROUP TO GIVE YOUR FEEDBACK: Please post all comments
or follow-on questions to the newsgroup for the benefit of others who may be
interested. If you need to send an e-mail to me directly (although that
would be exceptional), remove the uppercase letters from my address above.
E-mails with attachments are automatically rejected.

* YOUR SOLUTIONS AND VIEWS *ARE* WELCOME: If you know the answer, even a
partial one, to a question you see on this newsgroup, feel free to jump in
and answer it -- there's no monopoly on answering here, and (except for an
occasional visit by someone with "Microsoft" or "Mac Business Unit" in their
signature block) we're all volunteers! Feel free to comment or ask a
question that supplements someone else's question, too.

* COMING BACK PAYS DIVIDENDS: I've found no better way of improving my
knowledge of Word than visiting this newsgroup. I've compiled some notes
that include ideas from this newsgroup and elsewhere, and also list other
sources of information about Word. Titled "Bend Word to your Will", they are
downloadable free at www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/WordMac/Bend/BendWord.htm

* BACK UP NOW: If anyone is still reading down this far, here's a question:
if your settings files were corrupted right now, would you have an
up-to-date backup from which to retrieve your document settings and
customizations? It's best to back up your Normal template and all your Word
settings files on a medium other than the internal hard drive and, if you
also want to protect against theft and fire, to store them in a different
building. More information is at
www.word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/BackUpYourWork.htm and in "Bend Word to your
Will".
============================================================

 

[bob holt]

-----Original Message-----
Bob,

Footnote paragraphs do have slightly different behaviours than paragraphs in
the main document, usually in relation to paragraph marks. The one usually
encountered is the fact that the final paragraph mark in a footnote cannot
be deleted. But sometimes Word can get confused if you have been making many
changes, it seems. That includes applying formatting to a number of
footnotes (as distinct from italicizing or emboldening words within a
footnote) -- it's probably best to keep footnotes formatted only with
Footnote style (though one can modify the default style without any
problem). The exact reasons for this "sensitivity" are obscure (to me, at
any rate).

I've experienced your problem occasionally -- always in documents originated
in Windows (though many documents on which I work were created in Windows,
so the Windows factor *may* not be relevant -- though my suspicion is that
it is). Often the cause appeared to start with over-use of Track Changes by
several contributors and having Fast Saves (the setting from hell) ON in
preferences. In some cases I found that selecting the whole document EXCEPT
for the last paragraph mark (type Command-a, hold down the Shift key and hit
Left Arrow), copying it and pasting into a new blank document removed the
problem (it's the most-usually-successful method for removing document
corruption). Often, though, with intractable footnotes there was evidence of
changes of formatting etc applied within the footnote; then I had to select
the text of the footnote, copy or cut it, then paste into a new blank
document, delete the footnote reference number a new insert a new footnote
reference number. Then I selected the footnote text parked in the new blank
document WITHOUT its paragraph mark(s) (holding down the Command key and
clicking in the footnote text is the quickest way to do this), keyed
Control-spacebar to remove any manually applied formatting, copied that, and
pasted it into the footnote.

Try these ideas and post back, especially if you are successful, so that we
can all benefit from your feedback. If you aren't successful, we will need
more information from you. Tell us *exactly* what you mean by "when I make a
mistake or change my mind". What are you wanting to delete, and exactly how
are you doing it? (for example, are you seeking to select a paragraph mark
[key Command-8 to make them visible] in the footnote and delete it; is it
also impossible to delete an unselected paragraph mark with the Forward
Delete key?). Don't spare the detail!

Cheers,

Clive Huggan
Canberra, Australia
(My time zone is at least 5 hours different from the US and Europe,
so my follow-on responses to those regions can be delayed)
============================================== ==============

--- SOME TIPS THAT MIGHT BE USEFUL ---

* WAIT FOR CONSIDERED ADVICE: If you post a question, keep re-visiting the
newsgroup for several days after the first response comes in. Sometimes it
takes a few responses before the best or complete solution is proposed;
sometimes you'll be asked for further information so that a better answer
can be provided. Good tips about getting the best out of posting are at
http://www.word.mvps.org/FindHelp/Posting.htm

* QUERY GOOGLE FIRST: Before posting your next question, search Google
Groups
(http://groups.google.com/advanced_group_search?q=group: *mac.office.word) --
the topic may have been comprehensively answered already.

* THE MS NEWS SERVER IS QUICKEST: If you connect directly to the Microsoft
news server (msnews.microsoft.com), you will see your replies within
minutes; going through your ISP's news server could take much longer, and
web-based access can also be slow -- often 8 hours, and up to several days.
For settings for the MS news server, see www.entourage.mvps.org

* POST BACK TO THE NEWSGROUP TO GIVE YOUR FEEDBACK: Please post all comments
or follow-on questions to the newsgroup for the benefit of others who may be
interested. If you need to send an e-mail to me directly (although that
would be exceptional), remove the uppercase letters from my address above.
E-mails with attachments are automatically rejected.

* YOUR SOLUTIONS AND VIEWS *ARE* WELCOME: If you know the answer, even a
partial one, to a question you see on this newsgroup, feel free to jump in
and answer it -- there's no monopoly on answering here, and (except for an
occasional visit by someone with "Microsoft" or "Mac Business Unit" in their
signature block) we're all volunteers! Feel free to comment or ask a
question that supplements someone else's question, too.

* COMING BACK PAYS DIVIDENDS: I've found no better way of improving my
knowledge of Word than visiting this newsgroup. I've compiled some notes
that include ideas from this newsgroup and elsewhere, and also list other
sources of information about Word. Titled "Bend Word to your Will", they are
downloadable free at www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/WordMac/Bend/ BendWord.htm

* BACK UP NOW: If anyone is still reading down this far, here's a question:
if your settings files were corrupted right now, would you have an
up-to-date backup from which to retrieve your document settings and
customizations? It's best to back up your Normal template and all your Word
settings files on a medium other than the internal hard drive and, if you
also want to protect against theft and fire, to store them in a different
building. More information is at
www.word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/BackUpYourWork.htm and in "Bend Word to your
Will".
============================================== ==============

I've always had trouble with footnotes in my Word X documents (running
OSX 10.3.5). Whenever I make a mistake or change my mind about a
footnote (in my book, started in Windows and transferred to Mac a couple of
years ago), I keep encountering the stern admonition, "Not a valid action for
footnotes." It's usually when I want to delete something, especially excess
empty lines! I have made several vain attempts to find the rules governing
footnotes and see if I could change them, but in vain. Is there any way to dig
into those rules?

Latest problem: A short,half-line footnote, taking off from a line near the
top of the page (so there's plenty of room for it) doesn't appear on the same
page but at the bottom of the next one! How can I get it to be on the page
where it belongs? "Help" doesn't recognize this as a problem.

Clive,

I'm beginning to think of Australia as the land of the helpful! After posting
my questiion yesterday, my wife and I went to a cocktail party, where she
learned from her nephew that his lovely young wife, who is Australian, could
probably help me with other problems in re my book, since she is very
familiar with Adobe Acrobat Professional 6.0! After I had made a date with
her to talk about it tomorrow, I found your long and thoughtful response to
my footnote query.

It happens that I haven't had any of the problems taken up in your first
paragraph. Nor have my frustrations occurred in docs. whee there has been
any use of Track Changes. I don't have Allow Fast Saves on, and haven't
tried to change formatting in notes. Neverhtless, I am printing out and
saving your response because it might well be what I need sometime in the
future.

So let me be more specific about my current footnote problems. I am going
over chapters getting them ready for conversion to PDF (for publication on a
CD), and first I convert all my endnotes to footnotes. I prefer the latter
anyway, but I do have some long ones and was afraid I'd get into messes of
the kind tht have actually occurred with runovers to other pages.

Specifically, on p. 723, footnote 10 starts at the end of the page where there
isn't room for its last two lines. One of those is at the bottom of p. 724, one
on p. 725! In no case is there any rational reason not to save more room at
the bottom of the page. If a couple of text lines had been forwarded to p.
724, the whole ftnt could have fitted in easily on p. 723.

Also, on p. 749, I called for note 18 at about 4 in. down from the top. It was
immediataely followed by the 6-line note, ending only a little more than
halfway down the page. I wondered why so much blank space had been left
when at least the other 3 lines of the original paragraph could have been
imported from the next page. Shortly afterward, I finished and saved the
chapter. Now, when I wanted to refresh my memory about details, I got the
chapter back up on screen--and lo, that sensible transfer of those 3 lines
had quietly been done! I checked p. 723 et seq., but no improvement there.

Incidentally, I've also discovered that Word usually leaves much too many
blank lines before the footnote, and that by deleting one of them I can coax
a missing footnote to come home from its refuge on the next page.

I take it that you don't know of any way to find a record of the basic rules
the program follows to construct a footnote, which might be modifiable the
way default settings on Styles can be corrected--something I just discovered
(to my delight) a few days ago. Maybe somebody has a skeleton key and will
share it.

Bob

 

[Clive Huggan]

On 26/8/04 12:38 PM, in article [email protected], "bob

I'm beginning to think of Australia as the land of the helpful! After posting
my questiion yesterday, my wife and I went to a cocktail party, where she
learned from her nephew that his lovely young wife, who is Australian

Yes, many of us are so feckless as to be helpful, as long as you don't pinch
our beer (cocktails would be OK!)

first I convert all my endnotes to footnotes.

You're not using Endnote, are you (especially the Cite While You Write
feature)? This is a known cause of problems.

I prefer the latter
anyway, but I do have some long ones and was afraid I'd get into messes of
the kind tht have actually occurred with runovers to other pages.

Specifically, on p. 723, footnote 10 starts at the end of the page where there
isn't room for its last two lines. One of those is at the bottom of p. 724,
one
on p. 725! In no case is there any rational reason not to save more room at
the bottom of the page. If a couple of text lines had been forwarded to p.
724, the whole ftnt could have fitted in easily on p. 723.

Also, on p. 749, I called for note 18 at about 4 in. down from the top. It
was
immediataely followed by the 6-line note, ending only a little more than
halfway down the page. I wondered why so much blank space had been left
when at least the other 3 lines of the original paragraph could have been
imported from the next page. Shortly afterward, I finished and saved the
chapter. Now, when I wanted to refresh my memory about details, I got the
chapter back up on screen--and lo, that sensible transfer of those 3 lines
had quietly been done! I checked p. 723 et seq., but no improvement there.

Bizarre! Hopefully the ref suggested by Dayo on your new post may help
(sorry I've been totally distracted by urgent income-earning work in the
last couple of days, so have been slow getting back to you).

Incidentally, I've also discovered that Word usually leaves much too many
blank lines before the footnote, and that by deleting one of them I can coax
a missing footnote to come home from its refuge on the next page.

This is very different from standard behaviour, Bob. If Dayo's ref doesn't
help, download "Bend Word to Your Will" and look at the footnotes there.
You'll see no blank lines before the footnote, only a standard amount of
space before, as specified by the style I have for footnotes. I wonder
whether you are putting any blank paragraphs in as part of the footnote? Is
there anything significantly different from the formatting of "Bend Word to
Your Will" and yours, Bob? Maybe there is something fundamentally different
that you are doing.

I take it that you don't know of any way to find a record of the basic rules
the program follows to construct a footnote, which might be modifiable

Sorry, no. But the standard way is rarely other than error-free (which is
why it's difficult to solve a problem such as yours, Bob -- because it's not
reproducible, and we don't have experience of it; but I'll persevere).

the
way default settings on Styles can be corrected--something I just discovered
(to my delight) a few days ago.

Here I *can* be useful. Have a look at the Styles section in "Bend Word to
Your Will".


Cheers,

Clive Huggan
=================

 

[bob holt]

Dear Clive,

Before reading your most recent posting, I made one more try, which was
successful. It depends on an oddity, that might crop up for someone else.
Somehow, I had never noticed that on the page (call it A) where the 7 lines
of footnotes should have been but only 6 appeared, the reference number
(27) for the first footnote was there near the top, but I hadn't noticed that
ref. 28 did not appear. Searching, I found it two pages later, on p. C where
the final line was hanging on. So, I tried to cut the rest of the text of note
28 from the bottom of p. A; of course, for Word that is forbidden. So I
copied it and pasted it successfully just before the final line on p. C.

That took care of the second footnote, but left most of it still cluttering up
p. A. I had discovered some time ago that though you can't delete anything
in Word footnotes, you can select something and hit the space bar which
makes it disappear. So I did that, first for the text and then for the number.
Almost there; but there was still a lot of blank space, which I tried to delete.
It didn't work. Then I remembered this Newsgroup and went to see if you
had responded to my last plea. When I got back and took another look, the
extra spaces had quietly disappeared!

Meanwhile, however, I had learned about "Bending Word to your will,"
though you modestly didn't mention that you had written it. Google told me
how to find and download it, which I did. Haven't had time to read much of
it yet, but so far it looks great. I am again much in your debt! Many thanks,

Bob