How to remove the footnote/endnote separator line in Word document?

When inserting footnotes or endnotes in Word document, you will find there is always a horizontal separator line above the footnote or endnotes texts. If you want to get rid of these separator lines, please try methods in this article.

Remove footnote/endnote separator line in Word

Remove footnote/endnote separator line with VBA code

Remove footnote/endnote separator line in Word

You can remove footnote or endnote separator line in Word as follows.

1. In the document you will remove its footnote or endnotes separator line, click View > Draft.

2. Then click References > Show Notes as below screenshot shown.

3. If there are both footnotes and endnotes in your document, a Show Notes dialog box will pop up, please select an option as you need and then click the OK button. Here I select View footnote area.

Note: If only footnote or endnote existing in your document, ignore this step and move to step 4.

4. Now the Notes section is displaying at the end of the document, please select Footnote Separator in the Footnotes drop-down list, select the separator line and then press the Delete key to delete it. See screenshot:

5. Shift to the Print Layout view of the document.

Then you can see the separator line of footnote is removed immediately from the document.

Note: To remove the endnote separator line, you just need to check View endnote area in the above Show Notes dialog , and then select Endnote Separator in the Endnotes drop-down list.

Remove footnote/endnote separator lines with VBA code

If the above method is inconvenient for you, you can try the following VBA codes to quickly remove all separator lines of footnote or both footnote and endnote from document.

1. In the document you will remove separator line of footnote, press the Alt + F11 keys to open the Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications window.

2. In the Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications window, click Insert > Module. Then copy below VBA code into the Module window.

VBA code: remove footnote separator line in document

Sub DeleteTheFootnoteSeparator()
'Updated by ExtendOffice 20181112
    If ActiveDocument.Footnotes.Count < 1 Then Exit Sub
    If ActiveWindow.View.SplitSpecial = wdPaneNone Then
        ActiveWindow.ActivePane.View.Type = wdNormalView
    Else
        ActiveWindow.View.Type = wdNormalView
    End If
    With ActiveWindow.ActivePane.View
        If .Type = wdPrintView Or .Type = wdWebView Or _
        .Type = wdPrintPreview Then
            ActiveWindow.View.SeekView = wdSeekFootnotes
        Else
            ActiveWindow.View.SplitSpecial = wdPaneFootnotes
        End If
    End With
    ActiveWindow.View.SplitSpecial = wdPaneFootnoteSeparator
    With Selection
        .MoveRight Unit:=wdCharacter
        .TypeBackspace
        .TypeBackspace
    End With
    ActiveWindow.View.SplitSpecial = wdPaneFootnoteContinuationSeparator
    With Selection
        .MoveRight Unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=1
        .TypeBackspace
        .TypeBackspace
        With .ParagraphFormat
            .LineSpacingRule = wdLineSpaceMultiple
            .LineSpacing = LinesToPoints(0.06)
        End With
    End With
    ActiveWindow.View.Type = wdPrintView
End Sub

3. Press the F5 key to run the code. Then all footnotes’ separator lines are removed immediately from the document.

Note: If you want to remove all separator lines of footnote and endnote, the below VBA code can help.

VBA code: remove footnote and endnote separator lines in document

Sub DeleteTheFootnoteSeparator()
'Updated by ExtendOffice 20181112
    If ActiveDocument.Footnotes.Count < 1 Then Exit Sub
    If ActiveWindow.View.SplitSpecial = wdPaneNone Then
        ActiveWindow.ActivePane.View.Type = wdNormalView
    Else
        ActiveWindow.View.Type = wdNormalView
    End If
    With ActiveWindow.ActivePane.View
        If .Type = wdPrintView Or .Type = wdWebView Or _
        .Type = wdPrintPreview Then
            ActiveWindow.View.SeekView = wdSeekFootnotes
        Else
            ActiveWindow.View.SplitSpecial = wdPaneFootnotes
        End If
    End With
    ActiveWindow.View.SplitSpecial = wdPaneFootnoteSeparator
    With Selection
        .MoveRight Unit:=wdCharacter
        .TypeBackspace
        .TypeBackspace
    End With
    ActiveWindow.View.SplitSpecial = wdPaneFootnoteContinuationSeparator
    With Selection
        .MoveRight Unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=1
        .TypeBackspace
        .TypeBackspace
        With .ParagraphFormat
            .LineSpacingRule = wdLineSpaceMultiple
            .LineSpacing = LinesToPoints(0.06)
        End With
    End With
    ActiveWindow.View.SplitSpecial = wdPaneEndnoteSeparator
    With Selection
        .MoveRight Unit:=wdCharacter
        .TypeBackspace
        .TypeBackspace
    End With
    ActiveWindow.View.SplitSpecial = wdPaneEndnoteContinuationSeparator
    With Selection
        .MoveRight Unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=1
        .TypeBackspace
        .TypeBackspace
        With .ParagraphFormat
            .LineSpacingRule = wdLineSpaceMultiple
            .LineSpacing = LinesToPoints(0.06)
        End With
    End With
    ActiveWindow.View.Type = wdPrintView
End Sub

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