new footnotes don't change existing numbering!

[mkrauss]

First: I have checked to see if others have written about this issue,
but found nothing. If they have, I deeply apologize for the
duplication.

I am writing a law review article (I am a law professor). The article
has 55 pages and about 240 footnotes, in one section. The article has
gone through many revisions, and back-and-forths from me to my research
assistant, who has done some of the spade work. My RA works with Word
on a PC, I use Word 2004 version 11.2 for Mac.

OK, here's the issue. When I add a new footnote, that new footnote is
now footnote 1, even if (for example) I am placing it between footnotes
99 and 100 in the text. The next footnote I will add will be footnote
2, and so on. I have added about 10 footnotes in this final iteration
of the paper.

Also, if I move existing footnote 101 to be, for instance, just in
front of footnote 30, the old footnote retains the number 101, instead
of becoming new footnote 30 and renumbering all following footnotes.

Each footnote does correspond to the appropriate footnote text, but now
the numbering is all crazy, e.g., the following sequence might occur:
99, 3, 125, 100, 4. 101, 102, etc.

Also, when I place my cursor over a footnote in the main text, the
correct
footnote text appears, but the footnote number now appears to be the
first character in the footnote text.

Weird, no?

How can I fix this? Thanks to all for your help.

Michael

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

There are (at least) two possible factors here (these are just issues that
users have reported where the cause of the problem has been identified):

1. You are tracking changes. Numbering in general (including footnote
numbering) will not be stable or final until you have accepted all the
changes.

2. The document was converted from WordPerfect. Recent versions of the
converter seem to make a hash of footnotes. They look like real footnotes
and behave like real footnotes (up to a point), but they're actually fake,
for the reason you describe. If this is what you've run into, you'll have
little recourse but to insert a new real footnote in place of each fake one
and cut/paste the content into it. (I don't think there are similar Mac vs.
PC issues, but I wouldn't put this beyond the bounds of possibility.)

3. Someone has unlinked the numbering. This is a long shot, especially if
you created the document and have been its custodian forever, but
occasionally users who are sending articles to scholarly journals report
that the journal requires the notes (usually endnotes in that case) to be
added at the end as plain text (a numbered list), with static reference
numbers in the document; this can be accomplished by unlinking the notes,
but it's unlikely that this is an issue in your case.