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.

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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
    2013-04-13T13:42:53+00:00

    I have to say, having tried all of the remedies suggested above, that not one of them has worked. I'm sure I'm not alone in being utterly baffled as to why it should be such an ordeal to simply remove the space above a footnote so that a document looks more professional.

    Is there any other way that the space above a footnote can be removed? Is Microsoft working on rectifying this glaring error in future versions of Word or is it something that cannot be fixed (Ican't believe this could be true in the second decade of the 21st century)?

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  2. Suzanne S Barnhill 279.4K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2013-04-13T13:51:10+00:00

    Sometimes you have to make a choice between extra space and other settings. See http://WordFAQs.mvps.org/BottomLine.htm for a discussion of the issues involved.

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  3. Anonymous
    2013-08-01T20:04:38+00:00

    Hello all

    I have the same problem. Above the footnote separator, there's room for several lines, but still the text (same paragraph, it's not even a new paragraph) will jump to the next page.

    I looked into the footnote separator setting, there are no breaks or spacing before or after. I switched of all these options in the paragraph menu  like 'widow/orphans', 'keep with next', 'keep lines together' and 'page break before'. Now I sometimes have titles at the bottom of a page and the text on the next one, or paragraph all on a page with just 1 last line of a next page. It looks ridiculous, but I wouldn't mind if it solved the problem But, it doesn't. I still have pages where I have place for 2-3 more lines, but Word decides that the rest of the paragraph goes on the next page.

    I am writing a paper for school. The assignment is to write 35 pages. Now it looks like I am "stealing" 2-3 lines every time on those pages (it's line spacing 1.5, so with about 10 pages that miss 2 lines, it's nearly 1 page lost). That's not the idea I want them to have.

    I hope anyone can help me out. Thanks.

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  4. Stefan Blom 352.7K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2013-08-01T23:19:52+00:00

    Did you read Suzanne's article at http://wordfaqs.mvps.org/BottomLine.htm?

    Also, remember that if you want to turn off widows and orphans for (every page of) an entire document, you will have to modify the Normal style (or whatever style you are using for the body text of your document).

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