Word: Change the gap between a footnote and the separator line

When you insert a footnote in Word (References tab > Insert Footnote), by default it gets added to the bottom of the page along with a short line and an empty paragraph to separate it from the body of the text. The footnote separator line and the empty paragraph are styled as ‘Normal’, so if you’ve adjusted the paragraph spacing (leading) above and/or below in the style, you may get way more space than you need, as shown in the screenshot below.

It’s that empty paragraph that annoys a lot of people — it just adds unwanted space in front of the page’s footnotes, when there’s already a visual separator in the partial line. You can’t get rid of the the empty paragraph using normal deletion methods either. But you CAN get rid of it.

Here’s how:

1. You must have at least one footnote in your document before you can do the steps below.
2. You must be in Draft view to do this (View tab > Draft).
   
3. Once you’re in Draft view, go to the References tab then click Show Notes.
   
4. A mini Footnotes window opens at the bottom of the page:
   
5. Change the Footnotes setting from All Footnotes to Footnote Separator.
   
6. Now you can see the separator and the empty paragraph:
   
7. Place your cursor at the end of separator line, then press Delete to remove the empty paragraph below.
8. Click the X at the far right of the Footnotes mini window to close it.
9. Change the view back Print Layout (View tab > Print Layout).

You’ve now got rid of that empty paragraph for ALL footnotes in your document.

Update August 2020: There’s quite a bit more you can do with styling this footnote area, according to this Office Watch article: https://office-watch.com/2020/delete-or-change-the-separator-line-for-footnotes-and-endnotes/

[Link last checked August 2020]