In my MS WORD 2003 document, all of the sudden, and without me doing anything
but simply writing, I notice that the footnote separator disappeared when I
tried to view it in print layout view. So, I went into Normal and then chose
footnote sepatator. What I saw is this: the separator with 2 questions marks
at the right end: ___________?? I have never seen this. I can not delete
the questions marks. Even when I try to restore the default separator, I
still cannot view it in layout mode.

What in the world is going on here? How can I get the separator back?

Thanks.

From what you say, I gather that Reset is not helping? Sometimes the
separators acquire strange styles, or strange formatting if Normal has been
modified. It may help to check what style is applied to the separator.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

"JD" wrote in message
...
In my MS WORD 2003 document, all of the sudden, and without me doing
anything
but simply writing, I notice that the footnote separator disappeared when
I
tried to view it in print layout view. So, I went into Normal and then
chose
footnote sepatator. What I saw is this: the separator with 2 questions
marks
at the right end: ___________?? I have never seen this. I can not
delete
the questions marks. Even when I try to restore the default separator, I
still cannot view it in layout mode.

What in the world is going on here? How can I get the separator back?

Thanks.

Dear Suzanne,

Thanks for your response. But I still have a question:

I am not sure what you means by "...if Normal has been modified." Modified
in what way? I have not done any modufying. Also, you say to check what
"style" is applied to the separator. Well, the only way I know to do this
is: Normal, footnote, separator and then look to the right where the "style"
dropdown tells what "styles." But what is this suppose to tell me?

Thanks


"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote:

From what you say, I gather that Reset is not helping? Sometimes the
separators acquire strange styles, or strange formatting if Normal has been
modified. It may help to check what style is applied to the separator.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

"JD" wrote in message
...
In my MS WORD 2003 document, all of the sudden, and without me doing
anything
but simply writing, I notice that the footnote separator disappeared when
I
tried to view it in print layout view. So, I went into Normal and then
chose
footnote sepatator. What I saw is this: the separator with 2 questions
marks
at the right end: ___________?? I have never seen this. I can not
delete
the questions marks. Even when I try to restore the default separator, I
still cannot view it in layout mode.

What in the world is going on here? How can I get the separator back?

Thanks.

When you are in the footnote pane, viewing the footnote, with All Footnotes
showing in the dropdown on the footnote pane toolbar, Footnote Text will be
displayed in the Style box on the Formatting toolbar. When you select
Footnote Separator in the footnote pane dropdown, the Style box should show
Normal. I have seen cases where the footnote separator had (don't ask me
how) gotten formatted in some other style. And in some of the letter
templates that came with Word 2.0 (descendants of which I'm still using),
Normal (rather than Body Text) was used for the letter body and had been
given a first-line indent. Not surprisingly, the Footnote Separator also had
a first-line indent. That's the sort of anomaly I was referring to.

Under the circumstances, however (especially since Reset doesn't fix the
problem), I suspect that either your document or your template has become
corrupted. See http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/AppErrors/CorruptDoc.htm.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

"JD" wrote in message
...
Dear Suzanne,

Thanks for your response. But I still have a question:

I am not sure what you means by "...if Normal has been modified."
Modified
in what way? I have not done any modufying. Also, you say to check what
"style" is applied to the separator. Well, the only way I know to do this
is: Normal, footnote, separator and then look to the right where the
"style"
dropdown tells what "styles." But what is this suppose to tell me?

Thanks


"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote:

From what you say, I gather that Reset is not helping? Sometimes the
separators acquire strange styles, or strange formatting if Normal has
been
modified. It may help to check what style is applied to the separator.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup so
all may benefit.

"JD" wrote in message
...
In my MS WORD 2003 document, all of the sudden, and without me doing
anything
but simply writing, I notice that the footnote separator disappeared
when
I
tried to view it in print layout view. So, I went into Normal and
then
chose
footnote sepatator. What I saw is this: the separator with 2
questions
marks
at the right end: ___________?? I have never seen this. I can not
delete
the questions marks. Even when I try to restore the default
separator, I
still cannot view it in layout mode.

What in the world is going on here? How can I get the separator back?

Thanks.