How can I remove the space above the footnote separator?

Anonymous
2012-03-10T06:23:19+00:00

I have a long document with many footnotes. On some pages, a large space, sometimes only enough for one double-spaced line, sometimes enough for two, appears above the footnote separator. How can I get rid of this space? I've turned widow-orphan control off, so it shouldn't be related to that. I've looked at the separator under "show notes" in draft view, and it doesn't appear to have any extra spaces associated with it. This actually happens with all of my Word documents.

Thanks for your insight.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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Stefan Blom 352.7K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
2012-03-10T13:52:16+00:00

When viewing the footnote separator (in the footnotes pane), right-click and select Paragraph from the context menu. In the Paragraph dialog box, click the Indents and Spacing tab, and make sure that Spacing Before is set to zero. You may also want to change the Line Spacing to "Single."

Also, to make sure no blank paragraphs is included with the separator, click the ¶ button on the Home tab. Paragraph marks are represented by pilcrows, ¶. Delete any excessive paragraphs if present.

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  1. Anonymous
    2015-12-30T21:37:38+00:00

    Did you perhaps do anything with the Footnote Continuation Notice? My experience has been that if you insert one, even if you later change your mind and delete it, Word continues to reserve space for it on every page (not just the ones where footnotes are continued).

    So how do we stop the Footnote continuation notice consequences?  I did try that notice but then -  I tried all the options! The initial problem worked and then this occurred. Massive space between the footnote and the footer.

    As for print screen options, I couldn't paste what I copied [just a blank square pasted] and so I could not save it to upload it. 

    Sorry- it is getting frustrating. If I copy a few pages into a new file all is well... for a while.  I'll try it again - tomorrow.

    Anne

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  2. Suzanne S Barnhill 279.4K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2015-12-30T22:36:28+00:00

    If you use PrintScreen to capture an image, you have to paste it into image editing software (including Microsoft Paint, which comes with Windows) in order to save it in a graphic format. The OP in this thread didn't specify Word or Windows versions, and I don't believe you have, either. More recent versions of Windows offer the Snipping Tool, and more recent versions of Word include a Screen Clipping tool, either of which can be used to create and save screen shots.

    When I tried the Footnote Continuation Notice, I found that only immediate Undo was of any avail. In your case, since it's presumably too late for that (if in fact that is what is causing the problem), you may be able to get rid of it by copying all but the last paragraph mark in your document and pasting into a new document. If the current document contains section breaks, you'll need to copy/paste a section at a time without the section break.

    But the FCN is not necessarily the cause; there can be other explanations for space between footnote and footer; see http://wordfaqs.mvps.org/BottomLine.htm.

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-03-27T04:22:02+00:00

    None of the below solutions worked for me, but I figured out how to do it another way:

    Right click the separator line, select "Note Options..." from the pop-up menu, under Location, use the drop-down menu next to Footnotes to select "Below Text".  Hit Apply.

    BOOM.  Big white expanse gone.

    I am currently using Word 2013, but I'm sure it will work for other versions with slight variations.

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  4. Stefan Blom 352.7K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2016-03-27T13:29:13+00:00

    Note that the "Below text" option for footnotes is discussed in Suzanne S. Barnhill's article at http://wordfaqs.mvps.org/BottomLine.htm (previously linked to in this thread).

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