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#1
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Footnote formatting>"Apply changes to selected text" not limiting changes to selected text
In a particular section, if I highlight one footnote call number, then go to the footnote formatting window and in the footnote numbering field select my chosen number format, and in the field "Apply changes to", opt for "Apply changes to selected text", it is not limiting changes to selected text. There are three options: Apply changes to (1) selected text, (2) selected section, (3) whole document. But even if I opt for "selected text", it is changing the footnote call number format for all the call numbers in the section, rather than limiting it to the call number which I have highlighted. How can I get this "selected text" option to work?
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#2
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Select a range of text (which includes footnotes) in the document and then display the Footnote and Endnote dialog box. From there, you can pick a different footnote numbering format and apply it to the selection. Word will insert the required section breaks for you.
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Stefan Blom Microsoft Word MVP Microsoft 365 apps for business Windows 11 Professional |
#3
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I have tried it now in the way you suggested: I selected two sentences, after the first of which there is a footnote. There are other footnotes on the page as well which are not in this selected area. So having selected that text, I went into the Footnote and Endnote dialog box and opted for a different footnote numbering format and applied it to the selected text. It did indeed change the footnote numbering format for the footnote in the selected section, but it also created a separate paragraph for that section. I did not want a separate paragraph for that section; all I wanted to do was change the footnote numbering format for the footnote in that selected section. But MS Word seems to insist on making it a separate paragraph. And if I move the section by hand back to where it was as part of the larger paragraph, then the footnote numbering format is not maintained. If I have to accept a new paragraph every time I do this, there will be literally hundreds of unwanted paragraphs. This is a book written in three languages: I need to be able to set paragraph breaks where I want them, and to be able to change the footnote numbering format in accordance with the language of the sentence after which the footnote has been placed.
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#4
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To change the footnote number format, you need section breaks. As I wrote, Word will insert them for you (if you don't add them intentionally).
Section breaks will interrupt the text flow; there is no way around that.
__________________
Stefan Blom Microsoft Word MVP Microsoft 365 apps for business Windows 11 Professional |
#5
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Ok, thank you Stefan.
Unfortunately, this feature is not going to meet my needs. Footnote numbering format and paragraph setting should not be tied to each other-- this seems to be an obvious weakness which Microsoft should address, as the two features are contextually unrelated. |
#6
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Word uses section breaks for changing the page number format too. This is unlikely to change, I'm afraid.
I believe that most word processors (such as LibreOffice Writer) require something similar to section breaks to change these formats. Maybe page layout programs (InDesign, QuarkXPress etc.) are more flexible; I am not sure.
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Stefan Blom Microsoft Word MVP Microsoft 365 apps for business Windows 11 Professional |
#7
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Yes surely, it makes sense that page number format would apply to an entire section. But footnotes are specific to the sentence they are placed after and not to the section. So while section-based page number format is unlikely to cause inconvenience to users, footnotes being highly context specific and not related to the section, are much more likely to require sentence-level formatting.
I do appreciate what you've explained about the technology used to create this feature; I just hope that going forward the designers may come to appreciate the need for greater sophistication regarding footnote number formatting. |
#8
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Quote:
I should mention that you can restart footnote numbers on each page (but you may already be aware of that). It may not help with your specific requirement. It should also be noted that everything in Word is in a section. In a document without section breaks, there is a single section that contains the whole document. For more on section formatting in Word, have a look at the article Working with sections (the principles discussed in the article apply, even though the details have not been updated for recent versions of Word).
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Stefan Blom Microsoft Word MVP Microsoft 365 apps for business Windows 11 Professional |
#9
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Got it-- thank you for all the information Stefan.
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#10
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Shall I mark this as solved? You have given me as much as anyone could possibly give on this subject, although the MS Word available technology does not seem to facilitate what I was wanting to do. If it will be helpful to users, I will mark it as solved-- just let me know.
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#11
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Quote:
__________________
Stefan Blom Microsoft Word MVP Microsoft 365 apps for business Windows 11 Professional |
#12
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My issue is not solved, but the forum has served its purpose of explaining what MS Word is capable of in this setting. The next step would need to be raising the issue with Microsoft. I shall mark it as solved for purposes of the forum.
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