Can't delete footnote divider

[Idaho Word Man]

I'm working in Word 2003, Windows XP Pro.

I've been given a document that looks like it had a footnote in it at one
time. There's a 2-inch horizontal line surrounded by a dotted border and
followed by a gray ¶ character. I can't select the paragraph character or the
line. It looks like it's the separator for a footnote, but there's no
footnote under it. There is, however, an empty paragraph under the line.

When I right click on the paragraph under the line, one of my options is "Go
to footnote," but when I select this option, it takes me to an inserted line
of text with no footnote visible in it. I have my view options set to show
hidden text and highlight fields in gray, but nothing's gray or hidden.

When I add or delete text above this point in the document, the line and
empty paragraph below it stay at the bottom of the same page that my cursor
goes to when I "Go to footnote."

How do I get rid of a footnote I can't find? I don't work with footnotes a
lot, so I'm hoping somebody can help me.

Thanks,

Fred

 

[grammatim]

With the cursor at the start of the document, do Find ^f and it will
take you to the place where an unnumbered footnote is referenced.
Select the nonexistent character (probably with Shift-right arrow; if
that selects the following space, then Shift-left arrow instead) and
delete it.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

As Peter says, your best bet is to use Find to find the phantom footnote
reference, then select a character or two on either side and Delete, then
retype the deleted characters.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

 

[JT]

It seems that someone has deleted the footnote number and content in the
footnote, but not the actual footnote reference in the text.

Do the following: When you "go to footnote," your cursor will be placed in
front of the footnote reference. Hit the delete key twice. The first
"delete" will highlight the footnote reference (even though you might not be
able to see it). The second "delete" will actually delete the footnote
reference. That should eliminate the footnote separator line and paragraph
symbol following it.

An alternate method is to "replace" all footnote references with nothing.
Here is how you do that: Pull up your Find/Replace window (or select "Edit"
/ "Replace").
If it is not the full window, click on "More." From the Format dropdown
menu, select "Style." In the Find Style window, select "Footnote Reference"
and click OK.
Position your cursor in the "Replace What" field and make sure that it is
empty. When you click "Replace All," all footnote references, footnotes, and
footnote separators will go away.

On the VERY VERY off chance that neither of the above alternatives work, you
can do this: From the View dropdown list, change your view to Normal. Go
back to the View dropdown list, and select "Footnotes." You screen will
split and the footnotes info will be at the bottom of your screen. From the
dropdown menu, select "Footnote separator." Highlight and delete it (the
paragraph symbol will remain). Click the close button and return to
whichever view you were in (via the View dropdown). Your line and the
paragraph symbol following it will be gone.

 

[Idaho Word Man]

Thanks. That did the trick.

Fred

It seems that someone has deleted the footnote number and content in the
footnote, but not the actual footnote reference in the text.

Do the following: When you "go to footnote," your cursor will be placed in
front of the footnote reference. Hit the delete key twice. The first
"delete" will highlight the footnote reference (even though you might not be
able to see it). The second "delete" will actually delete the footnote
reference. That should eliminate the footnote separator line and paragraph
symbol following it.

An alternate method is to "replace" all footnote references with nothing.
Here is how you do that: Pull up your Find/Replace window (or select "Edit"
/ "Replace").
If it is not the full window, click on "More." From the Format dropdown
menu, select "Style." In the Find Style window, select "Footnote Reference"
and click OK.
Position your cursor in the "Replace What" field and make sure that it is
empty. When you click "Replace All," all footnote references, footnotes, and
footnote separators will go away.

On the VERY VERY off chance that neither of the above alternatives work, you
can do this: From the View dropdown list, change your view to Normal. Go
back to the View dropdown list, and select "Footnotes." You screen will
split and the footnotes info will be at the bottom of your screen. From the
dropdown menu, select "Footnote separator." Highlight and delete it (the
paragraph symbol will remain). Click the close button and return to
whichever view you were in (via the View dropdown). Your line and the
paragraph symbol following it will be gone.

 

[grammatim]

If you mean that deleting the Paragraph Separator did the trick, it
didn't -- you still have an empty footnote in there,which is going to
mess up the page length of whichever page it's on.