{"id":5822,"date":"2016-07-18T04:00:12","date_gmt":"2016-07-18T08:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/americaneditor.wordpress.com\/?p=5822"},"modified":"2016-09-19T19:09:21","modified_gmt":"2016-09-20T01:09:21","slug":"lyonizing-word-inside-notes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/editorium.com\/archive\/lyonizing-word-inside-notes\/","title":{"rendered":"Lyonizing Word: Inside Notes"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Jack Lyon<\/strong><\/p>\n

As useful as they are, Microsoft Word\u2019s footnotes and endnotes are amazingly easy to mess up. Let\u2019s look at some ways that can happen \u2014 and how to fix the problems.<\/p>\n

First, we need to open a document that has footnotes \u2014 or make one. Then, to really see what\u2019s going on, we\u2019ll do this:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Click \u201cView\u201d and then \u201cDraft.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
    \"Click<\/a>

    Click \"View\" then \"Draft\"<\/p><\/div>\n

    2. Click \u201cReferences\u201d and then \u201cShow Notes.\u201d<\/p>\n

    \"Click<\/a>

    Click \u201cReferences\u201d and then \u201cShow Notes\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n

    That should take you into Word\u2019s \u201cNotes Pane,\u201d which should look something like this:<\/p>\n

    \"Word\u2019s<\/a>

    Word\u2019s \u201cNotes Pane\"<\/p><\/div>\n

    Deleted Reference Numbers<\/h3>\n

    The superscript numbers in front of each note are called reference numbers. By default, they\u2019re formatted with a character style \u2014 either Footnote Reference or Endnote Reference, which you can modify if necessary. What\u2019s interesting about these numbers is that it\u2019s possible to delete <\/em>them, so the notes look like this:<\/p>\n

    \"Deleting<\/a>

    Deleting Note Numbers<\/p><\/div>\n

    Deleting them, however, is an extraordinarily bad idea. Those numbers may look simple, but under the hood they have a lot going on. The number itself is automatically generated based on the reference number in the text itself. (If you create footnote number 9 in your document, the note itself will start with the number 9. If you delete footnote number 9 in your document, the note and its number will be deleted.) The number also signals the start of a new note, and if it\u2019s gone, document corruption is probably not far behind.<\/p>\n

    You can often tell if a reference number is missing by looking at the other note numbers. If they\u2019re numbered like this, you know something\u2019s wrong:<\/p>\n

    \"A<\/a>

    A Clue That Something Is Wrong<\/p><\/div>\n

    That\u2019s actually a fairly easy problem to fix: just copy the reference number from one of the other notes and paste it in front of the note that\u2019s missing its number. For example, if you copy the number for note 3 and paste it in front of the numberless note 2, you\u2019ll actually get a 2 in front of the note. Microsoft Word is smart enough to know what the number should be.<\/p>\n

    Usually, the reason a number is missing is because the author has directly deleted the entire text of the note, like this:<\/p>\n

    \"When<\/a>

    When Note Text\u00a0Is Deleted Directly<\/p><\/div>\n

    Why Microsoft hasn\u2019t prevented this is beyond me. If the author had deleted the note number up in the main document text, there wouldn\u2019t be a problem.<\/p>\n

    Typed-In Reference Numbers<\/h3>\n

    Sometimes, in an effort to make notes look \u201cpretty\u201d or meet a certain style, authors will format reference numbers as regular text rather than superscript, then type a period after them. There\u2019s really nothing wrong with that, other than introducing extraneous periods when importing the file into a typesetting program. But some authors actually delete<\/em> the numbers and type in new ones by hand. You can tell when that has been done by putting your cursor in front of a double-digit note number and pressing the right cursor key. If your cursor moves past the entire number, the number has been automatically generated. But if your cursor moves forward only one digit, the number has been hand-typed.<\/p>\n

    Again, you could fix the problem by copying an automatic number and pasting it over the hand-typed number, but what if all<\/em> of the numbers have been hand-typed? Where will you get an automatic number to copy? Simple: just insert a new footnote and copy the number from that. After you\u2019ve finished pasting, delete the extra note (up in the text, remember).<\/p>\n

    If you have lots of these numbers, you probably won\u2019t want to fix them by hand, so here\u2019s an easier way:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Select all of the notes in the notes pane.<\/li>\n
    2. Copy the notes.<\/li>\n
    3. Paste the notes at the end of the document.<\/li>\n
    4. Using Word\u2019s Find and Replace feature, search for ^f (the code for footnotes) or ^e (the code for endnotes) and replace all of the existing note numbers with a superscript 1. (That will also delete all of the automatic notes in the document.)<\/li>\n
    5. Use the \u201cText to Notes\u201d feature of my trusty NoteStripper<\/em><\/a>\u00a0add-in to turn the text notes into automatically numbering ones.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      \u201cSpecial\u201d Carriage Returns<\/h3>\n

      Sometimes when editing notes, you\u2019ll try to make a deletion and get the message that \u201cThis is not a valid action for footnotes\u201d:<\/p>\n

      \"Oops!\"<\/a>

      Oops!<\/p><\/div>\n

      What that cryptic message should<\/em> say is \u201cYou can\u2019t delete the carriage return that ends a footnote.\u201d The carriage return that marks the end of a note isn\u2019t a regular return; it\u2019s a special return, and you can\u2019t<\/em> delete it \u2014 Word won\u2019t let you. So what often happens is that authors will delete the note text and its reference number, leaving the carriage return behind. But there is a way to get rid of that return: delete its note number up in the main text of the document. If you can\u2019t tell which note number that is, copy the number of a different note and paste it in front of the note\u2019s carriage return. That will give the note a proper number, and you can then delete the note up in the main text. If you have lots of these extraneous carriage returns, you can get rid of them with a macro, as described in \u201cLyonizing Word: Deleting Extraneous Carriage Returns in Footnotes and Endnotes<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

      Microsoft, Are You Listening?<\/h3>\n

      We wouldn\u2019t have such problems with notes if Microsoft would implement just a few changes:<\/p>\n

        \n
      1. Make it possible to delete a note by selecting the entire <\/em>note, including the note reference number, the note text, and the \u201cspecial\u201d carriage return at the end of the note, and then pressing the Delete or Backspace key (which should also remove the note number from the main text). That would keep authors from leaving behind misnumbered notes and extraneous carriage returns.<\/li>\n
      2. Provide additional numbering options for the reference numbers in front of the note text, in particular the option to use full-sized numbers followed by a period. That would keep authors from typing in numbers and periods by hand (maybe).<\/li>\n
      3. When trying to delete the reference number or carriage return, provide a message that says \u201cSelect the entire note before deleting\u201d or \u201cTo remove a note, delete the note number in the main text of your document.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        These changes would do a lot to prevent problems caused by authors who don\u2019t know how to properly use Word\u2019s notes. You can help by letting Microsoft know about these needed changes. Give your feedback at Microsoft\u2019s \u201cWelcome to Word\u2019s Suggestion Box!<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n

        What about you? Have you seen other odd problems with Word\u2019s notes? If so, how have you solved them?<\/p>\n

        Jack Lyon (<\/em>editor@editorium.com<\/em><\/a>)\u00a0owns and operates the <\/em>Editorium<\/em><\/a>, which provides macros and information to help editors and publishers do mundane tasks quickly and efficiently. He is the author of <\/em>Microsoft Word for Publishing Professionals<\/a>, Wildcard Cookbook for Microsoft Word<\/a>, and of <\/em>Macro Cookbook for Microsoft Word<\/a>.<\/em> Both books will help you learn more about macros and how to use them.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

        by Jack Lyon As useful as they are, Microsoft Word\u2019s footnotes and endnotes are amazingly easy to mess up. Let\u2019s look at some ways that can happen \u2014 and how to fix the problems. First, we need to open a document that has footnotes \u2014 or make one. Then, to really see what\u2019s going on, […]<\/p>\n<\/a>","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[77,256,175,22,409],"tags":[767,1459,267,1460,1461,1259,1462,1463,1464],"class_list":{"0":"post-5822","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-computers-and-software","7":"category-contributor-article","8":"category-editing-tools-editorial-matters","9":"category-editorial-matters","10":"category-lyonizing-word","11":"tag-contributor-article-2","12":"tag-deleting-reference-text","13":"tag-jack-lyon","14":"tag-missing-references","15":"tag-renumbering","16":"tag-renumbering-references","17":"tag-skipped-reference-numbers","18":"tag-word-endnotes","19":"tag-word-footnotes","20":"h-entry","21":"hentry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3gfno-1vU","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/editorium.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/editorium.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/editorium.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/editorium.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/editorium.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5822"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/editorium.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5822\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6276,"href":"https:\/\/editorium.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5822\/revisions\/6276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/editorium.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/editorium.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/editorium.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}