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. Stefan Blom 352.7K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2015-12-29T15:39:43+00:00

    Could you show us an example then? A screen shot, which you can upload to the forum by using the Insert image button in the Reply window, might help.

    However, a file in actual Word format would be more useful. You will have to upload the Word file to (say) OneDrive or Dropbox, make the file public and post a link here.

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  2. Anonymous
    2015-12-29T20:20:59+00:00

    There seems no way I can do PrtSC for some strange reason. it just pastes in as a blank square. I can't upload to Dropbox as it isn't working for me. Nor is my other online storage. It seems I have multiple issues that looking for the answer to this formatting issue has highlighted. I can't upload the whole paper anyway as it would be open to public abuse ahead of my presentation at a university institute in London in a couple of weeks' time.  Pasting it to another document makes the problem disappear... for a while. Then the issue occurs again but not on other files I've been using. It has wasted loads of time today. IF I can try to demonstrate -

    The footnote is  -here bibliographic details... no pilcrows.

    and then there is this much space.

    Then the footer can be seen.

    Please advise,

    Anne

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  3. Doug Robbins - MVP - Office Apps and Services 323.6K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2015-12-29T22:23:14+00:00

    To include a screen capture, you will need to save it to the local drive and then use the ![](https://learn-attachment.microsoft.com/api/attachments/bfdc17a0-dedb-4c70-9233-3b58515457d9?platform=QnA) Insert image button and browse to the image that you saved on the local drive and select it.

    If you have two footnotes on the same page, is there the same (large) amount of space between them.

    Can you send me a portion of the document that displays the issue so that I can investigate the problem.

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  4. Suzanne S Barnhill 279.4K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2015-12-29T23:29:35+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).

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