How to insert a footnote or endnote in Microsoft Word to add supplemental information to a document

typing on Mac — Footnotes in Word are a helpful organizational feature when writing formal papers.
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You can insert a footnote or endnote in Word from the References tab of the ribbon.
Footnotes and endnotes are supplemental information you can add to a document and reference using superscripts in the main text.
You can add multiple references to the same footnote using the cross-reference tool in the References tab of the ribbon.
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While footnotes aren't necessarily a commonly used formatting feature in Microsoft Word, you'll appreciate having access to this ability if you need to create an academic or professional document that requires them.

Footnotes allow you to place supplemental information at the bottom of the page – in other words, the footer – which you reference with a superscript number or symbol in the main body.

Footnotes are different from endnotes; footnotes appear on the page they're referenced, while endnotes appear at the end of the document. Which one should you use? Whichever you prefer – or more likely, whichever one is called for in the writing or publication standards you're using.

How to insert a footnote or endnote in Word 1 — A typical set of footnotes in a Word document.
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How to customize a footnote or endnote in Word

Those simple steps should be all you need to create footnotes and endnotes for documents, most of the time. You can customize them, though, if you need them to look or work differently.

To get to the options for footnotes and endnotes, click the "References" tab in the ribbon and click the small arrow in the bottom-right corner of the Footnotes section. The Footnote and Endnote dialog box should appear.

How to insert a footnote or endnote in Word 3 — The Footnote and Endnote options dialog box.
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There are several options on this small dialog box. Here's what you can do:

Control where the notes appear. In the Location section, you can choose "Bottom of page" or "Below text" to set where footnotes appear. If you choose "Below text," the notes appear immediately under the last text on the page rather than all the way at the bottom.
Change the footnote or endnote layout. Click the dropdown menu next to "Columns" to arrange footnotes into columns instead of following the format of the main text.
Change the formatting of the footnotes and endnotes. You can specify the kind of numbering, lettering or other symbols that get used when you add footnotes. This is more than just an aesthetic choice; if you have both footnotes and endnotes in the same document, you'll want to make sure they're different to eliminate confusion. In addition, your writing or publishing guidelines might specify what numbering system to use for footnotes.

How to cross-reference your footnotes and endnotes

You might need to repeat the same reference multiple times in a document. Rather than adding the same footnote or endnote repeatedly, you can cross-reference the first instance whenever you need to throughout the document.

Here's how to do it using footnotes. If you want to cross-reference endnotes, the process is identical; just substitute endnotes for footnotes throughout the process as needed.

After adding the footnote or endnote in the usual way, position the cursor where you want to insert it the second time.
Click the "References" tab in the ribbon.
In the Captions section, click "Cross-reference."

Use the Cross-reference button to link to an existing footnote or endnote.
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In the Cross-reference dialog box, set the "reference type" dropdown menu to "Footnote."
In the "Insert reference to:" dropdown menu, choose "Footnote number (formatted)."
In the "For which footnote" section, click the footnote you want to cross-reference and then click "Insert."

Choose the footnote or endnote you want to cross-reference.
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Click "Done" to close the dialog box.

You should see the superscript number appear that references the desired footnote.

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