Share via

numbers show but not the footnotes - new footnotes I added show but not the last ones

Maria Andrews 0 Reputation points
2025-11-30T15:22:04.6+00:00

I was editing my word doc in the library and added footnotes. I then added some more footnotes and noticed the numbers weren't changing. The old footnotes have the numbers still in the text but don't open anymore. I double click on the footnote number but it's not opening anything.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For education | MacOS
0 comments

3 answers

Sort by: Most helpful
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Stefan Blom 323K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2025-11-30T19:09:27.39+00:00

    As long as you make sure to preserve a *.docx version and use that for editing, formatting shouldn't be easily lost or damaged. That said, it sometimes happens that documents become damaged.

    If you want to, you can share a sample document with the forum. Ensure that you remove any sensitive information from the document before sharing it.

    1 person found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  2. Stefan Blom 323K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2025-11-30T18:11:48.73+00:00

    Are you saving this document in the native Word (*.docx) format?

    Converting to other file formats may result in formatting being lost. For example, if you converted a document to PDF and then open the PDF in Word, footnotes are usually not identified as proper footnotes, but only as static text.

    0 comments
  3. Maria Andrews 0 Reputation points
    2025-11-30T18:37:58.6333333+00:00

    ok many thanks yes I export to pdf often so that I can listen to it on speechify - so what do I do then? I thought when I exported it the original file in word just stayed as it was - the problem is when I open it in word it won't open the footnote.

Your answer

Answers can be marked as 'Accepted' by the question author and 'Recommended' by moderators, which helps users know the answer solved the author's problem.