Using footnotes and endnotes

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Footnotes appear at the bottom of the page on which they are referenced. Endnotes are collected at the end of a document.

To work effectively with footnotes and endnotes, you need to:

You can also change footnotes to endnotes and vice versa.

Inserting footnotes/endnotes

To insert a footnote or an endnote, put the cursor where you want the footnote/endnote marker to appear. Then select Insert > Footnote from the menu bar or click the Insert Footnote Directly or Insert Endnote Directly icon on the Insert toolbar).

Using the Insert Footnote Directly icon on the toolbar.

A footnote (or endnote) marker is inserted in the text, and the cursor is relocated to the footnote area at the bottom of the page (or to the endnote area at the end of the document). Type the footnote or endnote content in this area.

If you use Insert > Footnote, the Insert Footnote dialog box is displayed. Here you can choose whether to use the automatic numbering sequence specified in the footnote settings and whether to insert the item as a footnote or an endnote.

Insert Footnote dialog.

If you use the Insert Footnote Directly or Insert Endnote Directly icon, the footnote or endnote automatically takes on the attributes previously defined in the Footnote Settings dialog box.

You can edit an existing footnote/endnote the same way you edit any other text.

To delete a footnote/endnote, delete the footnote marker. The contents of the footnote/endnote are deleted automatically, and the numbering of other footnotes or endnotes is adjusted automatically.

Defining the format of footnotes/endnotes

To format the footnotes themselves, click Tools > Footnotes. On the Footnote Settings dialog box, choose settings as required. The Endnotes page has similar choices.

Defining footnote formatting.

Formatting footnotes and endnotes is a bit complicated, because there are so many parts. Each part has a style that you can change, for example by using Format / Styles and Formatting. Endnotes work the same as footnotes, with "Footnote" changed to "Endnote" everywhere. Taking footnotes first, the main parts are these:

  • The "Footnote Anchor" is the number or symbol that occurs in the main text, typically superscripted, and often an automatically-generated number. The format of this character or number (font, size, superscripting, etc) is controlled by a Character Style (the second icon under Format / Styles and Formatting), named "Footnote Anchor".
  • The "Footnote Characters" is the number or symbol at the start of the "Footnote". This is the same number or symbol as the "Footnote Anchor", but can be formatted differently; for example, it might or might not be superscripted. This is controlled by a Character Style (the second icon under Format / Styles and Formatting), named "Footnote Characters".
  • The "Footnote" is the paragraph(s) of text that appears at the bottom of the page. This is controlled by a Paragraph Style (the first icon under Format / Styles and Formatting), named "Footnote".
  • The "Footnote Area" is the space reserved at the bottom of a page to put footnotes in. It might have a horizontal line or extra space above it, or other effects. This is controlled by a Page Style (the fourth icon under Format / Styles and Formatting), named "Footnote" (don't confuse this with the Paragraph style of the same name!).

You can control the font and other properties of all your footnotes, by modifying the corresponding style.

Under Tools / Footnotes, you can control how footnotes are numbered, and even change which styles names are used to control each part (though that might get very confusing!). You can also fill text in to the "Before" and "After" boxes, which will be inserted automatically before and after the "Footnote Characters".

You can use this to shift the numbers over, or to put space between the numbers and the main text of the Footnote. The "Footnote Characters" (or the "Before" text if any), will start at the first-line indent position of the "Footnote" paragraph. It may be possible to control the space between the "Footnote Characters" (or the "After" text if any), and the main text of the Footnote, by defining a tab stop where you want the main text of the footnote to start, but this seems troublesome sometimes.

If the main text of the Footnote is long enough to wrap to additional lines, they will start at the normal paragraph indent for the Footnote paragraph.

Footnotes (and Endnotes) are an especially important place to use Styles rather than manual formatting; otherwise it will be very difficult to make them all look the same.


Putting a heading over your Endnotes

Changing footnotes to endnotes and vice versa

To change a footnote to an endnote or vice versa, right-click on the footnote/endnote anchor and select Footnote from the pop-up menu. This opens a dialog box where the change can be made.

If you do this, the footnote (or endnote) will still be of style "Footnote" (or "Endnote"), so either assign the other style manually, or remember this and be careful to change the correct style even thought its name doesn't fit so well any more. To see what style a paragraph is in, simply click somewhere in it, and look at the style button near the left end of the formatting toolbar. You can change the style by clicking on that button and selecting.

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