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 352.6K 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
    2016-12-28T05:30:02+00:00

    The problem I had with the extra space in a footnote was inconsistent footnote number sizes. In the normal or draft view, double click, say, the first footnote number in the actual text (footnotes themselves don't appear in this view). This will open up a box at the bottom with all the footnotes in your document. Select ALL the footnotes (numbers included!), and make them all the same font. That worked for me...

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  2. Stefan Blom 352.6K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2015-12-29T11:18:33+00:00

    That is not sufficient. HOW do I delete the apparent paragraph markings when my mouse refuses to go to them. There are at least 3 I want to dispose of.        

    To edit the footnote separator, you must activate the footnote pane first: Switch to Draft view and then click Show Notes on the References tab.

    If you are trying to do something different, please elaborate.

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  3. Anonymous
    2015-05-12T15:30:50+00:00

    I dealt with the same issue and discovered what was causing the problem in my document.  Word was forcing substantial blank space at the bottom of a page.  The top of the next page had a paragraph with five citations.  Rather than place the paragraph and some of the footnotes at the bottom of the previous page, Word forced the paragraph and all footnotes to the next page.  I changed the paragraph to a bulleted list of cited material.  The first two bullets and the first two footnotes then moved to the bottom of the previous page.

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  4. Anonymous
    2012-03-10T15:06:03+00:00

    Thanks for the reply. Everything regarding the footnote separator is already set as you indicate--zero space before, line spacing at "single." Also, I checked the separator with the paragraph button and it reveals no additional paragraphs to explain the large spaces. I don't see anything to indicate that the separator is the culprit.

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