Add footnotes

A footnote puts a small number in your text and a note with the same number at the end of the page. Use one for a source, a remark, or a detail that would break up the sentence.

Add a footnote

1. Click in your text where the number should go. With text selected, the number goes after the selection.
2. Open the Insert menu and choose Page elements → Footnote, or press ⌘⌥F on a Mac (Ctrl+Alt+F on Windows and Linux).
3. Type the note. Your cursor is already in it, at the end of the page.
4. Press Esc to go back to your text, right after the number. Clicking in your text works too.

Footnotes number themselves 1, 2, 3 in the order they appear. Add one before another and the numbers after it move up.

Edit a footnote

Click the note at the end of the page, or click its number in your text, and type. The toolbar and the Format and Insert menus now work on the note, so you can make text bold or add a link. ⌘B, ⌘I, and ⌘U (Ctrl+B, Ctrl+I, and Ctrl+U) work as in your text. A note holds paragraphs of text: no headings, lists, tables, or another footnote.

⌘Z (Ctrl+Z) in a note undoes your last change, in the note or in your text, as one history.

Remove a footnote

Put your cursor right after the number in your text and press Backspace. The number and its note go together. Copying or cutting a sentence with a number takes its note along, and pasting it brings the note back.

Good to know

• Making text across a number bold, colored, or a comment leaves the note as it is, and so does Clear formatting.
• The find bar searches inside footnotes. A match in one opens that note, with the match selected.
• Word count doesn't count footnotes.
• Comments can't go on the text of a note.
• On a phone you can read footnotes, but you can't add or change them. Only people who can edit the document can.