Footnotes in Word - Help!

October 12, 2011 6:49 PM

Footnotes in Word - Help!

I need to restructure the first chapter of my thesis, and want to do this by cutting and pasting to a new document. Word (2007) however, has decided that it does not want to copy my footnotes along with the selected text.

Furthermore, when I paste the text into a new document, the formatting goes la-la-la and puts everything single spaced in Ariel (which is not the font I'm using).

I don't remember Word 2002 Pro getting up to this kind of nonsense. Can anybody tell me what Word (or I) am doing wrong?

posted by New England Cultist to writing & language (3 answers total)

Are you selecting the entire chapter of the thesis, including the footnotes? Did you do the footnotes with the Word footnote feature or did you do them by hand?

An easier way to do this might be to do a Save As and re-save your entire work with a new name, and then edit away in that. Then you don't have to copy it all into a new document.
posted by bluedaisy at 6:55 PM on October 12, 2011

Have you tried using "Paste Special" instead of paste? Often when I have trouble with Word or Excel losing formatting when I paste, it's because it wants me to Paste Special instead.

No, I don't know why it's special. It's just paste-ier, I guess!

In Word 2007, click the Paste clipboard icon that's on the far left-hand corner. You will then be able to choose Paste Special. I think you will probably want to choose the first item on the list it gives you, "Microsoft Office Word Document Object."
posted by ErikaB at 7:00 PM on October 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

Thanks ErikaB! It really IS extra special.
posted by New England Cultist at 7:53 PM on October 12, 2011