Tucked in the middle of the Word 2010/2007 Ribbon is a tab called References. It’s a big Why Bother item for most casual writers. For folks working on doctorates, thesis papers, political manifestos, and other big, scary documents, it’s an invaluable feature.

The References tab contains six groups. Of the six, only one might be used by a typical Word user: Footnotes.

The Footnotes Group (Word 2010)

The name is misleading: The group covers both footnotes and endnotes.

A footnote appears at the bottom of the page where it is referenced. They’re numbered 1 through whatever, with a superscript 1 (or whatever) in the text and then the same number at the bottom of the page.

An endnote appears at the end of the document. It has a superscripted reference number, often a Roman Numeral.

You can convert a footnote into an endnote and vice-versa: When viewing the footnote at the bottom of the document, right-click it and choose Convert To Endnote.

Another issue is the footnote/endnote style. That’s fixed by summoning the Footnote and Endnote dialog box: Click the Dialog Box Launcher button in the lower right corner of the Footnotes group.

Footnote and Endnote dialog box.

Use the dialog box to change the location, format, numbering style, and other aspects of your footnotes/endnotes.

So far, that Footnote group is about all most people bother with when it comes to the References tab. The rest of the items may seem incidental, but they can prove quite handy, especially when you’re doing one of those Bit Term Papers or something else important, where document references matter.

I’ll discuss the other options on Friday’s blog post.