How to start a footnote from a number other than 1

[Nabil]

Hi

I have been browsing for a solution to a problem about footnotes. Is it
possible to start a footnote from a certain number other than 1 in a new
section?

A master document has subdocuments for book chapters. The footnotes in each
chapter should start from 1. In chapter 1 I have 4 footnotes. In Chapter 2, I
inserted a new section to start the footnotes from 1. I have 12 footnotes in
chapter 2 so far. Then I had to insert a section break to get a landscaped
page within chapter 2. Then I inserted another section break to go back to
the portrait layout. In the new section for the portrait page that follow the
landscaped page when inserting a footnote I get footnote 1 instead of
footnote 13. I wonder if anything can be done to cure this or Microsoft needs
to make the footnotes more flexible. Did I miss anything?

Regards

 

[Stefan Blom]

There certainly is an option, in recent versions of Word, to set footnote
restart options for individual sections (look in the footnote options dialog
box). I never managed to get this to work in Word 2003, but in Word 2007 it
seems to work.

A word of warning: Master documents tend to corrupt, so you may not want to
use them. See http://word.mvps.org/faqs/general/WhyMasterDocsCorrupt.htm.
For an alternative approach, see
http://word.mvps.org/faqs/tblsfldsfms/includetextfieldscontent.htm.

--
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP


in message
news:[email protected]...

 

[Nabil]

Thank you for the reply. I may not be fair to say you did not answer my
question. I still cannot insert a footnote with a number other than 1 in a
section in both Word 2003 and Word 2007. The footnotes dialogue box in both
is very much the same except for the colouring and removing the document
option in 2007. This dialogue box is more of a document options box. What is
done in it applies to the whole document and not from that point forward.

I wonder if Microsoft is planning to make this feature much flexible. With
the development cycle of Office from 95 to 2007 being in effect for over ten
years they should have done it by now. Why not they implement another
structure in a document? There is a Document and within the Document there is
a Section. Why not add a structure in between, like Chapter that consists of
sections?

Regards

 

[Stefan Blom]

Go to the section whose numbering you want to change. Click the References
tab on the ribbon. Click the dialog launcher button (the arrow in the bottom
right corner) in the Footnotes group. Set the desired option. Make sure that
the "Apply changes to" box is set to "Section." Does this help?

If you want to, I can take a look at the document. You can send it to
(e-mail address removed).

But, as I wrote in my previous message, in Word 2003 it doesn't work
correctly, so if you are using that version too, your only choice will be
to use continuous footnote numbering (or distribute the document as a PDF
instead). :-(

--
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP


in message
news:[email protected]...

 

[Nabil]

Many thanks for your help. I tried again in Word 2007, and it did not work.
Due to time limitation of this job I have used text boxes to add the faulty
footnotes manually.

The file is a master document for a book of around 500 pages. I think it is
impractical to send it as attachment, besides I need the consent of my
client. I shall try to make up a dummy master document with similar section
breaks and see if it works in Word 2007.

Regards

 

[Stefan Blom]

in message

Many thanks for your help. I tried again in Word 2007, and it did not
work.

That is bad news. My simple test indicated that it did work (which was not
the case in Word 2003), but, obviously, I didn't check every possible case.

Due to time limitation of this job I have used text boxes to add the
faulty
footnotes manually.

This seems like a time-consuming task. :-(

Are you going to distribute this document electronically? If so, PDFs seem
like the better choice given that you had to "fake" some of the footnotes.

The file is a master document for a book of around 500 pages. I think it
is
impractical to send it as attachment, besides I need the consent of my
client.

OK, good point.

You may also want to see this article on document corruption (if you decide
to test some of the fixes, do so on a copy of the original document):
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/AppErrors/CorruptDoc.htm.

 

[Nabil]

The client wanted one PDF file for the whole master document. Additionally,
having limited time to accomplish the job; I had to make the "fake" footnotes
where needed. He was happy with the outcome.

I have created a mock document with similar section breaks, footnotes and
page layout and I saved it in Word 2007. I will be sending it to you shortly.

Regards

 

[Stefan Blom]

The test document sent to me has three chapters, each of which should
restart numbering. This means that (at least) one Word section is needed for
each chapter. Since the second chapter contains a landscape page, it needs
three sections. Therefore, five sections are required for the whole
document.

And the desirable settings, in the Footnote and Endnote dialog box, are
the following:

For section 1: "Restart on section"

For section 2: "Restart on section"

For section 3: "Continuous"

For section 4: "Continuous"

For section 5: "Restart on section"

Here are the results:

Chapter One:

Section 1: Notes 1, 2, 3

Chapter Two:

Section 2: Notes 1, 2, 3, 4

Section 3 (Landscape): Notes 5, 6
(numbered 8, 9 with "Continuous" numbering set for the section)

Section 4 (back to portrait): Not 7
(numbered 10 with "Continuous" set for the section)

Chapter Three:

Section 5: Notes 1, 2

The bug from Word 2003 (2002?) is apparently still present.

The only work-arounds (except manually entering the appropriate numbers)
would be to have the footnotes restart on each page, or keep them continuous
through-out the document.

--
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP


in message

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Darn! I thought someone had reported that this bug had been fixed.

 

[Stefan Blom]

Yes, I recall seeing that too. It's really disappointing. :-(

--
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP


in message

 

[trj27]

Has this been fixed? I'm having the same issue!

Yes, I recall seeing that too. It's really disappointing. :-(

--
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP


in message

 

[Hope Hare]

There certainly is an option, in recent versions of Word, to set footnote
restart options for individual sections (look in the footnote options dialog
box). I never managed to get this to work in Word 2003, but in Word 2007 it
seems to work.

A word of warning: Master documents tend to corrupt, so you may not want to
use them. See http://word.mvps.org/faqs/general/WhyMasterDocsCorrupt.htm.
For an alternative approach, see
http://word.mvps.org/faqs/tblsfldsfms/includetextfieldscontent.htm.

--
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP


in message


The include text option doesn't begin to do what a masterdocument can do. With very careful control of styles, I have managed to use the masterdocument feature in Word 2003 to produce large reports with many chapters. This means that members of the team can work on the chapters simultaneously, and their changes are automatically included in the masterdoc. The masterdocument allows me to format the whole document consistently, and number the tables, boxes, and figures sequentially, producing a TOC. The footnote numbering is a problem, as you say. Word decided that footnotes could only be numbered continuously, restarting on each page, or restarting on each section--unlike captions, which are numbered by chapters. Footnotes have to be manually renumbered when there are section breaks in a chapter. To do that, you find the first footnote you need to renumber, select it, go to insert footnote, and in the custom mark box, insert the number you want. Then click apply.

This works in Word 2003. Have no idea about 2007, and am not anxious to find
out either...
Hope

 

[Stefan Blom]

I'm glad you've managed to get the correct numbering for footnotes.

As far as master documents are concerned, I'd just like to clarify that I
never suggested that they are the same as using INCLUDETEXT fields. In my
opinion, however, the fields do the job sufficiently well (and they are
safer).