How to edit footnotes style?

[Ge64]

Hi all,

I'm writing a paper for school and for the first time I have so many
footnotes that I'm trying to use Word's built in footnotes function. I
can succesfully insert a footnote reference and text, however I would
like to edit the way the footnotes are displayed on the page. When the
page is printed, there is a short line to separate the text body from
the footnotes, which I would like to keep, howewer there is about one
line of space between the line and the first footnote, but no space
between the text body and the line. I would like to switch those
spacings. For example, this is what the page looks like now:

text text text text
---------------------

footnote 1
footnote 2

I would prefer:

text text text text

________________
footnote 1
footnote 2

Any ideas?
Thanks,
Jeroen

 

[Ge64]

P.S. I'm using 2008

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Hi Jeroen,

First of all, realize that the space between text and notes will vary.
As Word juggles fitting the note on the same page as the footnote
number, keeping paragraphs from having a single line on a different
page, etc, it will change how many lines fit on a page.

But this is how you would control what you ask for:

For 2008, switch to Draft View. View Footnotes to open the footnote
pane. Change the drop-down menu at the top of the footnote pane to show
Footnote Separator. Select the Footnote Separator line, go to Format |
Paragraph, and add a number in the Spacing Before field--probably
something between 12 and 24. You might also need to set the Spacing
After setting there to zero (though personally I think a little space
there will look nicer). Experiment with the numbers a bit.

Note that this is only going to change for the document you do it in,
though I can tell you how to change it for all documents (I think).

 

[Kevin Taylor]

Ah, the inscrutable joys of Word.

Word gives very little control over footnotes, and furthers the problem
by burying those controls.

To achieve what you want, switch to the draft view (View/Draft), then
reveal footnotes (View/Footnotes, near the bottom of the menu). In the
drop-down menu, choose the Footnote Separator. Try the reset button, it
may convert the dashes to a solid line. If not, delete the dashed line
and create a solid one. Finally, clicking the reset button should remove
the annoying space between the line and your footnotes.

Good luck

kt

 

[Ge64]

heh you really do need to pull off all these tricks to get something
done in word, such has been my experience.

thanks, these solutions worked very well. btw, the separator was still
standard and nothing happened when i reset it (the dashes in my
example were just me trying to make the line as close to the text as
possible in my example using just text), but with the paragraph
formatting i made it do what I wanted.

 

[CyberTaz]

Hello Ge64 -

Just a short comment from a different perspective

heh you really do need to pull off all these tricks to get something
done in word, such has been my experience.

I don't see that as a basis for criticism. I don't think any piece of
software can, by it's default settings, precisely accommodate the exact
requirements of each & every potential user.

IOW, Needing to "pull off all these tricks" isn't a weakness or a flaw - the
fact that you *can* is, IMHO, one of its major *strengths*. It only stands
to reason that not every possible change can be blatantly displayed on a
handy toolbar, and that the more out of the mainstream one's preference the
deeper he must dig, but the tools are there to enable getting [almost] any
"something done"...

It always amuses me to see postings - not necessarily yours - where someone
complains about what they have to go through to make adjustments to
accommodate their often unorthodox preference to features that most other
similar programs don't even have - let alone provide the facility to alter.

As I say, just a thought

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[Clive Huggan]

Hello Ge64 -

Just a short comment from a different perspective

heh you really do need to pull off all these tricks to get something
done in word, such has been my experience.

I don't see that as a basis for criticism. I don't think any piece of
software can, by it's default settings, precisely accommodate the exact
requirements of each & every potential user.

IOW, Needing to "pull off all these tricks" isn't a weakness or a flaw - the
fact that you *can* is, IMHO, one of its major *strengths*. It only stands
to reason that not every possible change can be blatantly displayed on a
handy toolbar, and that the more out of the mainstream one's preference the
deeper he must dig, but the tools are there to enable getting [almost] any
"something done"...

It always amuses me to see postings - not necessarily yours - where someone
complains about what they have to go through to make adjustments to
accommodate their often unorthodox preference to features that most other
similar programs don't even have - let alone provide the facility to alter.

As I say, just a thought

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

A thought shared by many, Bob.

"Hello, Lamborghini Service Department? My dad just gave me his last year's
model.

"How do you change the colour of the GPS display?

"Uh, thanks for telling me.

"Heh, you really do need to pull off all these tricks to get something done.
Didn't have 'em in my Ho-dai Dingbat ..."

Cheers,

Clive
(saving up for my first Lamborghini)
===================================