Are you saying that you were unable to display the Footnotes pane? On the View tab, click Draft; Word switches to Draft view. On the References tab, you'll find that the Show Notes button is clickable. Click it, and Word displays the footnotes pane at the bottom of the window. Click the arrow next to the drop down, and you'll find Footnote Separator, Footnote Continuation Separator, Footnote Continuation Notice, and All Footnotes as options.

When it comes to your second question—changing the spacing defaults—you can click the Manage Styles button in the Styles pane (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+S). On the Set Defaults tab of the dialog box, make the desired changes. In particular, change Spacing After and Spacing Before to zero. Select "New documents based on this template" in order to save the new settings to the template attached to the current document.

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Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional