Changing the Reference Marks

Most footnotes are numbered 1, 2, 3, and so on, but Word enables you to change this standard numbering format to use letters, Roman numerals, or the special reference symbols *, †, ‡, and §.M.

Follow these steps to change reference marks:

1. Summon the Footnote and Endnote dialog box by clicking the dialog box launcher in the lower-right corner of the Footnotes group on the References tab.
   The Footnote and Endnote dialog box is shown earlier in this tutorial.
2. Select a number format.
   This list shows your choices:
   1, 2, 3 . . .
   a, b, c . . .
   A, B, C . . .
   i, ii, iii . . .
   I, II, III . . .
   *, †, ‡, § . . .

Click Apply.
All footnotes in a section must use the same numbering scheme. You can't mix and match.

If you choose the special symbols *, †, ‡, and § for your reference marks, Word doubles them, if necessary, to create unique reference marks. The first four footnotes use the symbols singly. The mark for the fifth through eighth notes are **, ††, ‡‡, and §§. After that, the symbols are tripled.

To keep this doubling and tripling of symbols in check, select the Restart Each Page option in the Note Options dialog box. That way, the mark for the first note on each page is always an asterisk (*). Otherwise, you end up with reference marks such as §§§§§§§§§§, which look silly.

To keep this doubling and tripling of symbols in check, select the Restart Each Page option in the Numbering drop-down list of the Footnote and Endnote dialog box. For example, you can specify that an asterisk (*) mark all footnotes. If you want to enter a symbol that's not readily available from the keyboard, click the Symbol button and select the symbol you want from the resulting Symbol dialog box.