How to Create Footnotes

If your manuscript contains footnotes, please be advised there is a fee for footnote insertion. If you have questions about footnote insertion fees, see our fee schedule or contact a representative. When putting footnotes in your manuscript, you will want to make sure they have been incorporated the correct and easy way, which I’ll demonstrate in a moment. What you should not do is manually type in the footnote reference numbers and then manually make space at the bottoms of your pages to type in the footnotes. Doing it this way will definitely cause problems after we place your text in the final book margins. When these margins change, your text will shift and the footnotes will no longer be at the bottoms of the pages where you intended them.

Instead, for Microsoft Word users, wherever you need a footnote reference number to appear, simply position your cursor at the insertion point where you want the reference number to be. Then, go to ‘Insert’, ‘Reference’, and ‘Footnote’. In the ‘footnote and endnote’ dialogue box that will pop up, make sure ‘Footnote’ and ‘Bottom of the Page’ are selected.

You also have the option of selecting ‘Endnote’. Endnotes will appear all together at the end of your document rather than at the bottom of the page. We recommend selecting endnotes if you are just citing a source or providing bibliographical information, but if you are elaborating on the content of a specific page, we recommend keeping it as a footnote.

You can also select the format of your numbering and what number to start. We recommend making sure continuous numbering is selected. This will automatically number your footnotes in chronological order as you insert them throughout your manuscript.

When you’re finished in the dialogue box, click ‘Insert’. The footnote reference number will appear, as well as a place at the bottom of the page where you can type in the footnote information. Creating your footnotes this way will make it very easy to add, remove, or re-number footnotes. In addition, if you ever need to add or remove content from your manuscript, the footnotes will move automatically with the shifting text.

If your footnotes have been created correctly, this will help your manuscript’s formatting go as quickly and as smoothly as possible. But if they have been created incorrectly, additional charges and/or production time may be involved.