Footnotes help your readers know that you have actually researched your topic and aren't just making it up as you go. Luckily, Word makes adding a footnote fairly easy... Until you cross the exacting standards set by the evil Kate.
While this usually isn't a problem, every now and again Word will format your footnotes in a manner which any true lover of Turabian would see as a moral failure. Luckily, Word allows you to change the formatting of your footnotes in without significant discomfort.
For the purposes of this post, I'll use the Footnote Separator as an example. Be aware that Word has two different types of Footnote Separators.
Word 2007
Go to View, and select the Draft view.
Then go to References, and select Show Notes.
The footnote viewing pane will now show up at the bottom of the page showing your footnotes.
At the top of the pane, click on the Footnotes drop-down list, and select the Footnote Separator.*
You should see a line made of underscores in the box.
Format the line as needed. You may need to change the length of the line or delete some extra spaces before the line.
If your line seems to randomly change length on some of your pages, the Footnote Continuation Separator could be causing your problem.
To make the line the same on all pages, copy your line and click on the drop-down list.
Select the Footnote Continuation Separator.
Select the whole line, right click, and click Paste.
The line should now be the same on all pages. Go to the Print Layout View to check your formatting.
**If you are using Word 2003 or earlier, you will access the Footnote Pane slightly differently. **
Word 2003
Switch to normal view.
On the View menu, click Footnotes
*Note that if you do not have any text in your footnote, All Footnotes will not appear in the drop-down list, so to make it easier to get back to your notes add some placeholder text to your footnote before you navigate away from All Footnotes.
