Electronic Footnotes Part 1

This picture is from Generated Lists Part 1. When I wrote part one, I said I'd explain everything in the picture, which is a representation of a typical page you'd find in a family history. I explained just about everything about adding captions and labels; however, the picture also includes a footnote. Click the picture to display a larger version and you'll see the circled number and footnote.

Like many attributes in MS Word, you can insert electronic footnotes with the additional ability to cross-reference to the electronic footnote and/or create lists. We'll start this multi-part conversation with the basic skill of simply inserting the footnote.

Steps

1. Open a Word document and type a few lines. Any text will do.
2. Click at the end of a sentence in the paragraph.
3. Insert a footnote.
   --In Word 2003, on the Insert menu, select Reference, click Footnote, and then click OK. Lots of additional choices on this dialog are possible; however, we're going to stick with the basics for this post.
   --In Word 2007/2010, on the Reference tab, click Insert Footnote.
   Word inserts the footnote number and moves your cursor to the bottom of the page. It opens an automatically numbered footnote (matching the number inserted in the text) and applies the Footnote style.
4. Type footnote text.
5. Move your cursor back into the text area of your document and click where you want to start typing again.
6. Repeat these steps each time you need to add a footnote and Word will number footnotes automatically and sequentially regardless of the order in which you enter the footnotes.

Footnote Style
If you don't like the way the footnote looks--for example, you want to use a different font--alter the Footnote style. See Global Changes vs. Local Changes (Change the font for a style (a global change)). Just be sure to pick the Footnote style.

Your version of Word may or may not display the Footnote style automatically. If you can't find it, display all styles. We've displayed them before; see A Style for Every Season for more information.

Cross-Referencing
The follow through is to the cross-reference dialog, where Footnote and Endnote are added to the list of labels automatically. We'll walk through the cross-reference dialog in the next post.

By now, you can begin to see that many things you do in Word are interconnected with other abilities in Word. After you know about the connections, you can begin to use them to your advantage. So stay tuned for more posts.