HELP! Un-editable Carriage Returns in Footnotes

On Sunday, November 5, 2017 at 1:33:38 PM UTC-7, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
You can't "delete" a footnote separator. You can only edit it.

The paragraph marks you can't delete are the marks marking the ends of footnotes.

You need to find in the text the places where there are footnotes even if (somehow)
their reference-numbers have disappeared.

On Sunday, November 5, 2017 at 1:10:48 PM UTC-5, wrote:
Not working for me - been to draft view, deleted the footnote separator and still have a paragraph mark before, after and even sometimes in the middle and when I try to delete them it tells me its an invalid request




Peter, you're amazing. Thank you sir!

On Friday, November 30, 2012 at 11:53:35 AM UTC-8, Maura wrote:
I have carriage returns in all my footnotes, after the footnote
separator bar (2 carriage returns) and before the footnotes. All
footnotes are like this as if the formatting is corrupted. I can delete
them all and put them all back in with the same format. I can change
everything except I cannot select or backup over, or anyway delete those
pesky horrific carriage returns. Help! I have to deliver this document
in 2 hours!




--
Maura

I wish this would work. I've been fighting with it for days. As soon as I touch Footnote Separator the footnotes disappear. I have a MacBook Pro, Yosemite, 10.10.

Still an awesome solution at the end of 2018! Thanks.....

On Friday, November 30, 2012 at 11:53:35 PM UTC+4, Maura wrote:
I have carriage returns in all my footnotes, after the footnote
separator bar (2 carriage returns) and before the footnotes. All
footnotes are like this as if the formatting is corrupted. I can delete
them all and put them all back in with the same format. I can change
everything except I cannot select or backup over, or anyway delete those
pesky horrific carriage returns. Help! I have to deliver this document
in 2 hours!




--
Maura

This has helped me too. Thank you so much Peter Daniels. You rock.

Thank you thank you...

Eight years later and it worked for me too. Thanks Peter!

On Friday, November 30, 2012 at 3:34:02 PM UTC-8, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
They're not "in" the footnotes; they're "in" the footnote separator.

The way to access that -- and change its formatting, in case you don't
like the line length or its indent or whatever -- is to switch to
Draft View, then go to Show Footnotes (I don't remember how to do that
in earlier Word, but if you have a Ribbon, it's at the lower right of
the Footnotes group of the References tab).

You then get a window at the bottom of the document window with a bar
above it, and in that bar is a dropdown from which you access the
Separator. Choose that, and (since you have your Non-Printing
Characters turned on) you'll see some stray paragraphs down there.
Just delete them.

Go back to Print View, and all is copasetic!
On Nov 30, 2:53 pm, Maura wrote:
I have carriage returns in all my footnotes, after the footnote
separator bar (2 carriage returns) and before the footnotes. All
footnotes are like this as if the formatting is corrupted. I can delete
them all and put them all back in with the same format. I can change
everything except I cannot select or backup over, or anyway delete those
pesky horrific carriage returns. Help! I have to deliver this document
in 2 hours!

--
Maura

Peter, you are amazing, thank you!

On Monday, September 21, 2020 at 8:30:14 AM UTC+1, Vegans in the Wild Over 50 wrote:
On Friday, November 30, 2012 at 3:34:02 PM UTC-8, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
They're not "in" the footnotes; they're "in" the footnote separator.

The way to access that -- and change its formatting, in case you don't
like the line length or its indent or whatever -- is to switch to
Draft View, then go to Show Footnotes (I don't remember how to do that
in earlier Word, but if you have a Ribbon, it's at the lower right of
the Footnotes group of the References tab).

You then get a window at the bottom of the document window with a bar
above it, and in that bar is a dropdown from which you access the
Separator. Choose that, and (since you have your Non-Printing
Characters turned on) you'll see some stray paragraphs down there.
Just delete them.

Go back to Print View, and all is copasetic!
On Nov 30, 2:53 pm, Maura wrote:
I have carriage returns in all my footnotes, after the footnote
separator bar (2 carriage returns) and before the footnotes. All
footnotes are like this as if the formatting is corrupted. I can delete
them all and put them all back in with the same format. I can change
everything except I cannot select or backup over, or anyway delete those
pesky horrific carriage returns. Help! I have to deliver this document
in 2 hours!

--
Maura
Peter, you are amazing, thank you!
Thanks a million Peter, spent hours trying to remove these returns, MS uninstalled my Office suite (trying to upgrade me to 365) and still couldn't offer this simple solution. November, 2020