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. Stefan Blom 352.7K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2013-08-01T23:49:23+00:00

    You are welcome.

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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
    2012-03-10T15:41:50+00:00

    Thanks a lot for this. Many of the paragraphs that have spaces large enough to fit as many as two double spaced lines underneath do not have headings nearby. Nor are there paragraph breaks nearby, though I have widow/orphan control off anyway.

    But this sheet is really helpful in indicating just how difficult it would be to fix the problem should I discover its source.

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  4. Suzanne S Barnhill 279.4K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2012-03-10T15:08:18+00:00

    See http://WordFAQs.mvps.org/BottomLine.htm for further discussion of these issues.

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