How to Add Footnotes in Word (Footnotes vs Endnotes)

Footnotes vs endnotes — the one choice that matters

Footnotes appear at the bottom of the same page as the text they reference, letting a reader see the note without leaving the page they’re currently on.

Endnotes collect at the very end of the document (or the end of each section, depending on settings), requiring a reader to navigate away from the current page to see the note’s content.

Which one to use is often dictated by a required citation style rather than personal preference — Chicago style commonly uses footnotes, while styles like APA rarely use either in the traditional sense, relying instead on in-text parenthetical citations. Check the specific formatting requirements for whatever the document is being written for before committing to one or the other.

The insertion shortcuts differ slightly: Ctrl+Alt+F (Windows) or Cmd+Option+F (Mac) for a footnote, versus Ctrl+Alt+D (Windows) or Cmd+Option+E (Mac) for an endnote.

Inserting a footnote

Click precisely where the footnote reference should appear — typically immediately after the specific word, phrase, or sentence being annotated, and generally after any punctuation mark rather than before it, following standard citation convention.

References tab, then Insert Footnote, or the keyboard shortcut.

Word automatically inserts a small superscript number at that position and moves the cursor down to the footnote area at the bottom of the current page, ready for text entry — no manual scrolling required.

Type the footnote’s actual content, then click back into the main body of the document to continue writing there.

Formatting footnote text

Footnote text uses its own dedicated “Footnote Text” style, visible and editable in the Styles pane, separate from the main body text’s style. Changing this style’s formatting (font, size) updates every footnote in the document consistently, the same way changing a Heading style updates every heading using it — generally a better approach than manually reformatting each individual footnote one at a time.

Restarting footnote numbering per section

For a document divided into multiple sections (chapters, for instance) where footnote numbering should restart at 1 for each new section rather than continuing sequentially through the whole document, this is configured via the small dialog launcher in the bottom-right corner of the Footnotes group on the References tab — opening the Footnote and Endnote dialog, where a “Start at” and “Numbering” (Restart each section, Restart each page, or Continuous) option controls exactly this behavior.

Converting between footnotes and endnotes

If a document was built using one type and needs to switch to the other, the same Footnote and Endnote dialog offers a Convert button, which switches existing footnotes to endnotes (or vice versa) throughout the document in one action, rather than needing to manually delete and recreate every single note individually.

A worked example: adding citations to a research paper

Say a paper following Chicago style needs footnote citations added throughout, referencing several different sources, some cited more than once.

For each citation, click right after the closing punctuation of the sentence being cited, press Ctrl+Alt+F, and type the citation details directly into the footnote area that appears — author, title, publisher, year, and page number, formatted per Chicago’s specific footnote conventions. Because numbering is fully automatic, inserting citation 12 doesn’t require manually checking or adjusting citations 1 through 11, or anything after it — Word handles the entire sequence.

For a source cited more than once, Chicago style generally uses an abbreviated note (author’s last name and a short title) for the second and later references rather than repeating the full citation — this still requires inserting a new footnote each time the source is referenced again, since each citation needs its own number and position tied to where it’s actually referenced in the text, even though the note’s content itself is deliberately shorter on repeat citations.

Once the paper is complete, do a final pass checking that every footnote number in the body text has a corresponding note at the bottom of its page, and that none were accidentally left as placeholder text or incomplete citation information — a quick scroll through checking each footnote against the source list catches this more reliably than trusting that everything was filled in correctly the first time.

Cross-referencing a footnote from elsewhere in the document

For a document that needs to reference “see footnote 4” or similar from within the main body text, rather than typing the number manually (which would need updating by hand if footnote numbering ever shifted), Word’s Cross-reference feature (Insert › Cross-reference, with Reference type set to Footnote) inserts a reference that automatically updates if the target footnote’s number changes later, the same automatic-updating principle that keeps footnote numbers themselves correct as content is added or removed throughout the document.

Footnotes in a document with multiple authors

For a collaboratively written document where different sections were contributed by different people, each potentially having added footnotes independently, it’s worth a final consolidation pass checking that citation formatting is genuinely consistent throughout — different contributors sometimes format citations slightly differently even when nominally following the same style guide, and Word’s automatic numbering handles the sequence correctly regardless, but it doesn’t enforce or correct inconsistent citation formatting on its own, so a final manual review remains genuinely necessary either way before the document is considered finished.

When something’s not behaving as expected

Numbers seem out of order — genuinely unlikely given Word’s automatic renumbering, but check for a Section Break somewhere in the document, since footnote numbering can be deliberately configured to restart at each new section, which looks like a numbering error at a glance but is actually correct, deliberate behavior.

Footnote area formatting looks different from the main body — this is expected, since footnotes use their own separate Footnote Text style; adjust that specific style if the appearance needs to change.

Need numbering to restart per section — use the Footnote and Endnote dialog (via the Footnotes group’s small launcher icon) to configure this specifically, rather than trying to manually renumber anything.

Accidentally created an endnote instead of a footnote — delete it and use Insert Footnote specifically rather than Insert Endnote; the two shortcuts and buttons are easy to mix up, being right next to each other in the same ribbon group.

The reference mark disappeared from the body text — it may have been accidentally deleted along with surrounding text; the footnote’s marker and its content at the bottom of the page are linked, and deleting the small superscript number in the body removes the whole footnote, not just the visible mark.

Whichever type is used, the core mechanics — automatic numbering, a dedicated text style, and easy conversion between the two — stay the same, so switching between footnotes and endnotes partway through a project is genuinely low-risk if a requirement changes.

Frequently asked questions