How to limit amount of footnote text on page

[Jared Hawkins]

I have a lot of footnes in a document. It seems the footnote text on
the bottom of each page is not staying with the footnote in the body
of the text. I have one page that is 90 percent footnotes and 10
percent of text in the body.

Is there a way to try to keep footnote information on or close to the
page it refers to?

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Hi Jared,

I think the key to solving this problem is knowing what a footnote is (or at
least ought to be).

foot·note n
1. a note at the bottom of a page, giving further information about
something mentioned in the text above.
2. an extra comment or information added to what has just been said
3. a relatively unimportant part of a larger issue or event
vt
to provide a text with footnotes, or to provide a footnote for a particular
reference within the text
Encarta® World English Dictionary © 1999 Microsoft Corporation. All rights
reserved. Developed for Microsoft by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

A footnote that is 90% of a page is not a footnote IMHO. If you have that
much information about an item on the page then that information belongs in
the body of the page, not a footnote. But that's just me.

That being said, I have read books and articles that ignore the concept and
had huge "footnotes." How about using a supplemental text box and a smaller
footnote? If you cram too much into a footnote I don't see how it could help
but spill into another page.

-Jim

--
Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

Everyone is encouraged to post answers to any unanswered questions whenever
you see one that you know the answer to

I have a lot of footnes in a document. It seems the footnote text on
the bottom of each page is not staying with the footnote in the body
of the text. I have one page that is 90 percent footnotes and 10
percent of text in the body.

Is there a way to try to keep footnote information on or close to the
page it refers to?

..

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word]]

Hi Jared:

The usual problem is as Jim mentions to prevent the footnote text spilling
to the next page.

Try setting your Footnote Style to have an EXACT line height of 11 points,
rather than "Single". Footnotes behave better with a pre-defined line
height.

But also as Jim says, there is really no place in modern documents for
footnotes of any description. If it's important, put it in the text. If
it's not, take it out: nobody in modern life has time to be futzing around
with footnotes

cheers


This responds to article <[email protected]>,

I have a lot of footnes in a document. It seems the footnote text on
the bottom of each page is not staying with the footnote in the body
of the text. I have one page that is 90 percent footnotes and 10
percent of text in the body.

Is there a way to try to keep footnote information on or close to the
page it refers to?

--

Please respond only to the newsgroup to preserve the thread.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. GMT + 10 Hrs
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[Dayo Mitchell]

Also see here--there are various instructions you can give Word that will
affect this issue:

http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/FootnoteOnDiffPage.htm

DM