Footnotes keep getting cut off and disappearing

Anonymous
2011-11-15T00:59:07+00:00

I have recently tried to start using Word 2011 for academic purposes and as such am starting to require the ability to footnote my work. This works fine up to a point, however once I have added several footnotes to the text, they randomly start disappearing and being cut off from the bottom of the page.

I can still click on the small footnote number within the main body of the text and have the carat then jump to the footnote at the bottom, however I cannot see what or where I am typing, despite the text being added to the footnote. If I then scroll around the page and go back to the main body text again, after a few minutes of random scrolling it eventually decides it's going to let me view the footnotes again, but then some disappear after a short while.

What am I doing wrong and how on earth can I get Word to allow me to edit my footnotes without them disappearing off of the screen?!

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Anonymous
2012-01-13T14:21:49+00:00

THE PROBLEM IS RELATED TO AUTORECOVER

I am almost sure that this is a bug in Microsoft Word 2011. I have been trying to figure out a solution to this problem for months. I have tried all of the suggestions and hundreds of my own...all to no avail. HOWEVER, I have discovered something that has not been mentioned here...

I have my AutoRecover set to 1 minute. Footnotes are fine until Word saves the AutoRecover information and then they disappear. I can see the blue AutoRecover progress bar flash across the status bar at the bottom of the window and immediately the footnote disappears. I then reapply the footnote style and they reappear as they should until the next AutoRecover.

Would someone please verify this. Hopefully we can get Microsoft to address this issue if we can demonstrate that it is a problem with Word and not the document formatting or the end user. Thanks.

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Anonymous
2014-02-12T21:56:33+00:00

THE SOLUTION FOR ME:  mentioned above. 

HIGHLIGHT ALL FOOTNOTES, ENTER STYLES, RE-APPLY FOOTNOTE STYLE TO THEM.

Works like a charm.  But i'm sure I'll forget it next time.  Here's a thought: someone at Microsoft could fix the bug.

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Anonymous
2014-02-10T16:02:34+00:00

I've experienced the same problems. In my current document, the first footnote (which is 5-6 lines) cuts off at the first line.  Disabling AUTORECOVER seems to have solved the problem, but this is a terrible long-term solution.  

Is there a real fix for this?  This is a major problem, in my view.

Am using Word 2011 on a mac.  Last update: 14.3.2

Thanks!

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Anonymous
2015-04-26T07:04:08+00:00

Between Endnote's "autoformat" and this problem with footnotes, I was ready to give up, but disabling auto-save worked! Thanks so much - it's three am and I was ready to jump ha ha ha.

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Anonymous
2013-02-01T12:28:33+00:00

I have seen several responses trying to find a workaround and the one I posted originally (January 13, 2012) is still THE workaround for this problem. I did extensive testing and can reproduce the problem 100% of the time as being directly related to the Autocorrect function. The workaround is to disable Autocorrect and remember to CMD+S often so you don't lose anything. Placing a table in the footer may work, but it is a complicated solution and I don't know how it will work with Endnote or papers large numbers of footnotes. Since disabling Autocorrect, I have completed several long and highly referenced research papers and have not had this problem rear its ugly head a single time. It would be nice if Microsoft would fix the problem, but its already been a while and the problem remains. This applies to Word 2011 Mac Version.

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  1. Anonymous
    2015-04-19T10:03:34+00:00

    Absolutely unbelievable that the arrogant *****s at microsoft have not fixed this in three years!

    I too am using Word for academic work and endnotes are not an answer for me - nor should autorecover off be an acceptable answer.

    I have tried Office 365 and hate it - also the cloud is unusable where I live and study as owing to demographics my mobile phone has no signal and landline broadband speed is less then 0.5mps

    (as an aside a village in India I visited that had only 3 mobile phones and 1 PC but had access to 100mbps broadband and 5 mobile providers with 5 bar signals!!!)

    Pity someone with lots of money does not take action against microsoft

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