How to Place Parenthetical Text into a Word 2016 Footnote

Word 2010 For Dummies

One of the sins you can commit in writing a term paper or thesis is placing too many parenthetical notes on a page. Many professors appreciate it when you instead use footnotes. You'll also appreciate the parenthetical_to_footnote macro, which automates the process.

Keystrokes were used to record this macro, but the insertion pointer must be precisely positioned for it to work: Click the insertion pointer before the parenthetical sentence, just before the period where you want the footnote to appear. The figure illustrates the positioning and the result after running the macro.

Running the parenthetical_to-footnote macro.

Sub parenthetical_to_footnote() ' ' parenthetical_to_footnote Macro ' Convert parenthetical text following the cursor into a footnote ' Selection.Extend Selection.Extend Character:="("

Selection.EscapeKey Selection.MoveRight Unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=1 Selection.Extend Selection.Extend Character:=")"

Selection.MoveLeft Unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=1, Extend:=wdExtend

Selection.Cut Selection.MoveRight Unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=1

Selection.TypeBackspace

Selection.TypeBackspace Selection.TypeBackspace

Selection.TypeBackspace Selection.TypeText Text:="."

Selection.MoveLeft Unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=1 With Selection With .FootnoteOptions .Location = wdBottomOfPage .NumberingRule = wdRestartContinuous .StartingNumber = 1 .NumberStyle = wdNoteNumberStyleArabic .LayoutColumns = 0 End With .Footnotes.Add Range:=Selection.Range, Reference:="" End With Selection.Paste End Sub The following keystrokes were used to create this macro. They're pretty complex:

Press F8 and then the ( (left parenthesis) character. The F8 command enters extended selection mode. When you press a key, such as the ( key, text is selected up to and including that character.
Esc, → Selection is canceled, and the → key moves the insertion pointer to the start of the parenthetical text.
F8, ) Text is selected up to and including the ) character.
← The ) character is removed from the selection.
Ctrl+X The parenthetical text is cut. The next few keystrokes remove the parenthesis and position the insertion pointer for the footnote.
Backspace, Backspace, Backspace, Backspace, . (period), ←
Click the References tab and, in the Footnotes group, click the Insert Footnote button.
Ctrl+V The text is pasted into the footnote.

About This Article

About the book author:

Dan Gookin has been writing about technology for 20 years. He has contributed articles to numerous high-tech magazines and written more than 90 books about personal computing technology, many of them accurate.
He combines his love of writing with his interest in technology to create books that are informative and entertaining, but not boring. Having sold more than 14 million titles translated into more than 30 languages, Dan can attest that his method of crafting computer tomes does seem to work.
Perhaps Dan’s most famous title is the original DOS For Dummies, published in 1991. It became the world’s fastest-selling computer book, at one time moving more copies per week than the New York Times number-one best seller (although, because it’s a reference book, it could not be listed on the NYT best seller list). That book spawned the entire line of For Dummies books, which remains a publishing phenomenon to this day.
Dan’s most recent titles include PCs For Dummies, 9th Edition; Buying a Computer For Dummies, 2005 Edition; Troubleshooting Your PC For Dummies; Dan Gookin’s Naked Windows XP; and Dan Gookin’s Naked Office. He publishes a free weekly computer newsletter, “Weekly Wambooli Salad,” and also maintains the vast and helpful Web site www.wambooli.com.