Footnotes in columns

Question

I found this issue and I hope someone can help me.

I have a text document in Word 2013 that has 2 columns. I want to add footnotes and the footnote must stay under the same column as its reference. I mean I want footnotes for each column of the document instead one footnote divided into columns as it is displaying now.

The problem is that sometimes I have a reference in the right column, but the footnote goes to the left. On the other hand If I divide the footnote into 2 columns and if I have 2 references in the left column, then the second footnote goes to the right column, while both should stay in the left column.

I opened the same document in the Libre office and there it was the exact way I wanted without changing anything before. Why does it happen with MS Word 2013? Any ideas of how to fix this?

Answer 1

In Word 2013, the first footnote (on a page) in a multi-column document will always be below the left-most column, even if the footnote reference in the text is in another column. Also, footnotes will always be "balanced," that is, distributed between columns. See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2740483/en-us/ (Changes in content layout between Word 2013 and earlier versions of Word).

To get the older behavior, you can save in *.doc (Word 97-2003) format.

Answer 2

As an alternative, you could try running the following macro to force the active document into Word 2010 compatibility mode:

ActiveDocument.SetCompatibilityMode wdWord2010

The quickest way to run the macro is from the Immediate window in the Visual Basic Editor. To display the editor, press Alt+F11, and then press Ctrl+G to activate the Immediate window. Type in the code and press Enter.

Note that running the macro enables the compatibility options at the bottom of the Advanced category at File tab | Options, and you may have to manually enable Word 2010 compatibility before saving the document.

Answer 3

What happens if you format the footnotes as "Keep lines together" and (when there are two) the first one as "Keep with next"?

Answer 4

Thank you, it worked. I had a small issue with the continuous break session after save it in .doc (Word 97-2003) format, I could fix it though. Now the footnotes are correct ;-)

Answer 5

I did it and nothing changed.