Delete or change the separator line for Footnotes and Endnotes
Don’t like that short dividing line between the Word document and footnotes/endnotes? You can change the color or look. Even delete the line completely. Though it’s hardly obvious even to Word experts.
Most commonly you want to remove the footnote dividing line to completely hide the footnotes from a version of the document.
Start by opening the Footnotes pane at References | Footnotes | Show Notes.
The Notes Pane is very useful when you have lots of Footnotes and Endnotes to manage.
Go to the Notes Pane and the pull down list to see the separator options:
Select Footnote Separator to see the default black line.
Change that to almost anything you like, for example here’s an extreme change shown in the pane and in the final document.
The Separator line can contain text, symbols and even emoji!
We even added an Office 365 Icon into the Footnote Separator (the ‘foot’ icon above). But that confused Word 365 and the Notes Pane would not open so it’s not recommended.
Change color or thickness of Separator Line
Rather than those extreme changes, just change the color of the default line from Black (Automatic).
The Word default line can change from the Home | Font ribbon section.
Change Font size to change the thickness of the separator line. Turning on Bold will also change the line thickness.
Color change via Font | Color.
Even Highlighting can be applied.
Delete the Footnote Separator Line
Open the Notes Pane, choose Footnote Separator then delete anything in the separator area.
Oops!
Click the Reset button to restore the default separator (a short line).
Make changes to the Footnote Continuation Separator and Footnote Continuation Notice as you see fit.
Endnotes Separator
The same applies to Endnotes. If there are Endnotes in the document, the Notes Pane will show Endnote Separator , Endnote Continuation Separator and Endnote Continuation Notice for you to edit to your heart’s delight.
Footnotes and Endnotes in Word
Hide any footnotes and endnotes in a Word doc
Adding Footnotes to Pictures
Word table with Footnotes