How to Add Footnotes and Citations in Word

Applies to: Microsoft Word (Microsoft 365, Word 2021, Word 2019, Word 2016), Word for Mac, Word for the web
Article Type: How-To
Last Updated: 2026-07-29

Summary

Footnotes and citations live side by side on Word's References tab and do two different jobs: a footnote is a comment tied to a spot on the page, while a citation is an entry drawn from a source list that also feeds your bibliography. This article covers both, plus the number formatting and cross-referencing that turn a long document into something a marker or a reviewer can follow.

Prerequisites

• Microsoft Word on Windows, Mac, or the web. Word for the web inserts and edits footnotes and endnotes, but the Citations & Bibliography group is desktop-only.
• Edit access to the document. Click Enable Editing if a Read-Only banner appears across the top.
• No admin rights required.

Instructions

1. Insert a Footnote

A footnote has two halves that Word keeps tied together: a superscript reference mark in your text, and the note itself at the bottom of the page.

1. Click in your text at the exact point the marker belongs — normally immediately after the closing punctuation, with no space in front of it.
2. Click the References tab on the ribbon.
3. In the Footnotes group at the left, click Insert Footnote.
4. A small superscript 1 appears at the cursor, a short horizontal separator line is drawn near the bottom of the page, and the cursor moves below it beside a matching 1.
5. Type the note text. Format it with the Home tab exactly as you would body text.
6. Click back in your body text, or press Shift + F5, to return to where you were.

Tip: Alt + Ctrl + F inserts a footnote without touching the ribbon. Alt + Ctrl + D inserts an endnote.

Verification: Add a second footnote earlier in the document. The one you created first renumbers itself to 2 on the spot. That automatic renumbering is the whole reason to use real footnotes rather than typing superscript numbers by hand.

2. Insert an Endnote, and Convert Between the Two

Endnotes work identically but pool at the end of the document instead of at the foot of each page. Choose footnotes when the reader needs the note without turning a page, and endnotes when the notes are long enough to swallow half the page.

1. Click where the marker belongs.
2. Click References > Insert Endnote in the Footnotes group.
3. Word adds a lower-case roman numeral — i, ii, iii — and moves the cursor to the notes block at the very end of the document.
4. Type the note.

To switch an entire document from one to the other:

1. Click the small diagonal arrow in the bottom-right corner of the Footnotes group. The Footnote and Endnote dialog opens.
2. Click Convert in the middle of the dialog. The Convert Notes dialog opens with three options.
3. Choose one:
   • Convert all footnotes to endnotes
   • Convert all endnotes to footnotes
   • Swap footnotes and endnotes — useful when the two sets went in the wrong way round.
4. Click OK, then click Close. The notes move and renumber in their new format.

Note: The Location section at the top of the same dialog controls where each type lands. Footnotes can sit at Bottom of page or Below text — the second option tucks the notes directly under the last line on a short page rather than dropping them to the page foot. Endnotes can sit at End of section or End of document.

3. Move Between the Marker and the Note

Scrolling to find a note in a forty-page document wastes more time than writing it did.

• Hover over any reference mark in your text. A tooltip shows the full note without moving the cursor.
• Double-click a reference mark to jump straight to the note. Double-click the number beside the note to jump back to the marker.
• Click References > Next Footnote in the Footnotes group to step to the next one. Click the small arrow beside that button for Previous Footnote, Next Endnote, and Previous Endnote.
• Click Show Notes, beside Next Footnote, to move the cursor into the notes area on the current page.

Tip: To delete a note, select the superscript reference mark in your body text and press Delete. Deleting the text at the bottom of the page leaves an orphaned number behind and breaks the numbering.

4. Change the Number Format or Restart Numbering

House styles differ. Legal documents often want symbols; a thesis often wants the count to restart in each chapter.

1. Click the small diagonal arrow in the bottom-right corner of the Footnotes group on the References tab. The Footnote and Endnote dialog opens.
2. Select the Footnotes or Endnotes radio button at the top so the settings below apply to the right set.
3. In the Format section, open Number format and choose your sequence:
   • 1, 2, 3 — the footnote default.
   • i, ii, iii — the endnote default.
   • a, b, c and A, B, C.
   • *, †, ‡, § — symbols, which cycle and double up after four notes.
4. Set Start at if the first note needs a value other than 1.
5. Open Numbering and choose how the count behaves:
   • Continuous — one running sequence through the whole document.
   • Restart each section — the count returns to 1 after every section break.
   • Restart each page — footnotes only, common in legal and scholarly typesetting.
6. Check that Apply changes to at the bottom reads Whole document, then click Apply.

Note: Restart each section depends on the document actually having section breaks. If nothing changes, the document is a single section — insert a Next Page section break where the new count belongs, using Layout > Breaks. How to Change Margins and Page Orientation in Word explains how sections carry their own settings.

Tip: To use a one-off symbol on a single note without changing the sequence, place the cursor, open the same dialog, click Symbol beside Custom mark, pick a character, and click Insert. Word leaves the numbered sequence untouched around it.

5. Choose a Citation Style and Manage Your Sources

The Citations & Bibliography group sits in the middle of the References tab and is a small database rather than a formatting tool. Set the style before you add anything, because every citation reformats to match it.

1. Click the References tab.
2. In the Citations & Bibliography group, open the Style dropdown.
3. Choose the style your submission requires — APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, IEEE, ISO 690, and Turabian are all in the list.
4. Click Manage Sources. The Source Manager dialog opens with two panes: Master List on the left, holding every source you have ever entered on this computer, and Current List on the right, holding the sources available to this document.
5. Click New to add a source. The Create Source dialog opens.
6. Set Type of Source at the top — Book, Journal Article, Web site, Report, Interview, and others. The fields underneath change to match.
7. Fill in Author, Title, Year, and the remaining fields. Select Show All Bibliography Fields at the bottom to reveal edition, volume, DOI, and URL.
8. Click OK. The source appears in both lists.
9. Click Close.

Tip: To reuse sources in a new document, open Manage Sources there, select the entries in Master List, and click Copy to push them across to Current List. The Search box at the top filters a long master list by author or title.

Note: A tick beside a source in Current List means it is cited somewhere in the document. A question mark means it is a placeholder with no details filled in yet.

6. Insert Citations and Generate a Bibliography

With the style set and sources loaded, each citation is two clicks.

1. Click in your text where the citation belongs, normally before the closing punctuation of the sentence.
2. Click References > Insert Citation in the Citations & Bibliography group.
3. Pick a source from the dropdown list. Word inserts the in-text citation formatted for your chosen style — (Okonkwo, 2024) for APA, a numbered marker for IEEE.
4. To add a page number, click the citation once, click the small dropdown arrow on its right edge, and choose Edit Citation. Type the page in Pages and click OK. The same dialog has Suppress checkboxes for Author, Year, and Title when the sentence already names them.
5. When the writing is done, click where the reference list belongs — normally the end of the document.
6. Click Bibliography in the same group. A gallery drops down with Bibliography, References, and Works Cited, each with a matching heading already applied, plus Insert Bibliography at the bottom for a list with no heading.
7. Click the entry your style requires. The list is generated, alphabetised, and formatted.

Verification: Change an author's name through Manage Sources > Edit, then click anywhere inside the bibliography. A button reading Update Citations and Bibliography appears above the list — click it and the entry rewrites, along with every in-text citation drawn from that source.

Note: If Insert Citation offers nothing, no sources are loaded for this document. Go back to Step 5, or choose Add New Placeholder from the same menu to drop a marker in and fill the details in later.

Tip: Before sending the file to someone without your source list, click the citation, open its dropdown arrow, and choose Convert citation to static text. The citation becomes ordinary text that no longer depends on the database — a one-way change, so do it on a copy.

7. Cross-Reference a Numbered Item or Heading

"See Section 4.2 on page 11" is worth nothing once you insert a chapter above it. A cross-reference keeps the number and page correct on its own.

1. Type the lead-in text, for example See with a trailing space.
2. Click References > Cross-reference, in the Captions group.
3. In the Cross-reference dialog, set Reference type — Heading, Numbered item, Bookmark, Figure, Table, Footnote, or Endnote.
4. Set Insert reference to. For a heading this offers Heading text, Page number, Heading number, and Above/below, which inserts the word above or below depending on where the target sits.
5. Select the target from the list in the lower half of the dialog.
6. Leave Insert as hyperlink selected so readers can Ctrl and click to jump there.
7. Click Insert. The dialog stays open so you can add more; click Close when finished.

Verification: Add a page of text above the target, then press Ctrl + A followed by F9 to refresh every field in the document. The cross-reference page number updates to the new position.

Note: Cross-references to headings depend on heading styles being applied. If the list in the dialog is empty, the document has no styled headings — see How to Use Heading Styles and Create a Table of Contents in Word.

Troubleshooting

TIP

The footnote is the superscript number in your body text, not the paragraph at the bottom of the page. Delete the number and the note disappears with it, and everything after renumbers. Delete the paragraph at the bottom and you are left with a numbered mark pointing at nothing.

Symptom / Error	Potential Cause	Solution
Deleting the note text left a number behind	The reference mark is still in the body	Select the superscript number in your text and press Delete (Step 3).
Footnote numbering restarts on every page	Numbering set to Restart each page	Open the Footnote and Endnote dialog, set Numbering to Continuous, and click Apply (Step 4).
A citation reads (Placeholder1)	A placeholder was never filled in	Click Manage Sources, select the entry marked with a question mark in Current List, click Edit, and complete the fields.
The bibliography still shows old details	The field is displaying cached content	Click inside the bibliography and click Update Citations and Bibliography above it, or press Ctrl + A then F9.
"Error! Reference source not found."	The cross-reference target was deleted	Delete the broken reference, then insert a new one pointing at a target that still exists (Step 7).
Sources are missing in a new document	Current List is stored per document	Open Manage Sources, select the entries in Master List, and click Copy (Step 5).
The Citations & Bibliography group is missing	Working in Word for the web	Click Editing > Open in Desktop App. The web version handles footnotes but not the source database.

Related Articles

• How to Use Heading Styles and Create a Table of Contents in Word
• How to Add Page Numbers, Headers, and Footers in Word
• How to Change Margins and Page Orientation in Word
• How to Create Text Columns in Word
• How to Insert and Format Tables in Word
• How to Track Changes in Word
• How to Convert a Word Document to PDF (and Back)

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