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. Suzanne S Barnhill 279.4K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2015-12-29T13:46:06+00:00

    Anne's second paragraph indicates that she got there in the end. Apparently she was editing her post about the same time you were posting this.

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  2. Anonymous
    2015-12-29T14:50:26+00:00

    Unfortunately I have now produced another problem. beneath the footnotes [ but not in the footer] appears a deep space with no pilcrows in either and it will not disappear.  How can I make this go?  I have tried the same as before and variations but nothing works so far and it makes all the document weirdly empty at the bottom of each page before the footer and wastes a lot of space if I print out my 30+ page document which I will be presenting at a formal academic institute's public lecture. Please advise.-Anne

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  3. Stefan Blom 352.7K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2015-12-29T15:11:21+00:00

    Look for Line Spacing and Spacing Before/After formatting.

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  4. Anonymous
    2015-12-29T15:22:46+00:00

    Sorry Stefan

    I did try that under modify styles within the footnote but it does not seem that the text or the style were to blame.

    Anne

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