How do I stop paragraph spaces from appearing between footnotes every time I open the Word document?

An Thomakos 5 Reputation points
2026-06-11T12:46:25.45+00:00

I recently have had this issue with a Word document of mine when editing the footnotes:

I add the footnotes and everytime I reopen the document, they appear to acquire an extra paragraph space under every footnote. I suppose that has to do with the style, which I have changed in numerous ways to no avail...

I'm not sure if that has to do with anything, but whenever I open up the document, it throws me to the middle of the 2nd page, not to the beginning or end (Where I last stopped editing).

Before saving and reopening:example 1

After saving and opening the same document:

example 2

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | Other | Windows
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An Thomakos 5 Reputation points
2026-06-12T22:02:03.1066667+00:00

Okay, I seem to have figured the problem out. Word was saving the documents in .odt format, and not .docx... I saved the document to .docx and now it seems to work. Thank you!

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  1. Stefan Blom 353.5K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2026-06-11T13:42:54.64+00:00

    Investigate the Spacing After and Spacing Before settings for the Footnote Text paragraph style. In the Apply Styles pane (Ctrl+Shift+S), type in the style name (if necessary) and click Modify. In the dialog box, click Format and then click Paragraph.

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    If the style changes as you reopen the document, be sure to clear the "Automatically update document styles" option in the Templates and Add-Ins dialog box. To display the dialog box, click Document Template on the Developer tab (if you can't see the tab, first enable it via File > Options > Customize Ribbon).

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  2. AI answer

    2026-06-11T12:46:43.4133333+00:00

    The extra blank space is controlled by the footnote separator and the paragraph formatting of the footnote text. Remove the extra paragraph mark from the separator and adjust the separator formatting so Word does not re‑insert that space each time the document opens.

    1. On the View tab, choose Draft.
    2. Double‑click any footnote number in the body text to open the Footnotes pane at the bottom of the window.
    3. In the Footnotes pane, open the drop‑down list that currently shows “All Footnotes” and select Footnote Separator.
    4. If there is a blank paragraph mark under the separator line, select it and delete it.
    5. If needed, select the separator line itself and use the Home tab to set its spacing (for example, remove any Space After in Paragraph settings) so it does not add extra vertical space.
    6. Close the Footnotes pane and switch back to Print Layout view on the View tab.

    This removes the extra paragraph that Word was using under every footnote and prevents the additional blank space from reappearing when reopening the document.

    References:

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