When you need to add a footnote to a document in Google Docs, it’s likely because you have additional information that you want to provide that doesn’t naturally fit into the flow of the document.
You may have thought of adding it in a variety of ways, but the result may not be what you want.
Fortunately, there is a way to add footnotes to your documents using a tool designed specifically for this purpose.
You can add a footnote in Google Docs by navigating to the location in the document where you want to add the footnote, clicking Insert at the top of the window, and then selecting the Footnote option. You can then enter the footnote content.
- Open a document.
- Click where you want to place the footnote.
- Select the “Insert” tab.
- Select a footnote.
- Insert a footnote.
Our guide continues below with more information on how to add footnotes to Google Docs, including images of the steps.
Google Docs has many features that many users may not be able to access.
Whether it is specific formatting options or various document objects, not everyone needs to use all the features offered by the application.
But you can do a lot more with Google Docs, including inserting footnotes into your document.
With the app’s footnote option, you’ll add a footnote number to the body of your document, and then enter the footnote content for it to appear in the footer.
Our guide below discusses how to do this in just a few short steps.
Related: Our Google Docs Subscription Guide will show you how to include this type of text formatting in your document.
The steps in this article were performed on the desktop version of Google Chrome on a Windows 11 laptop. These steps will work for most other desktop web browsers as well.
Step 1: Sign in to Google Docs Open the document to which you want to add a footnote.
Step 2: Click in the document where you want to insert the footnote.
Step 3: Select the Insert tab at the top of the window.
Step 4: Select the “Footnote” option from the dropdown menu.
Note that you can also insert a footnote using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Alt + F.
Step 5: Enter the contents of the footnote that will appear in the footer of the document.
You can click inside the text of the document when you’ve finished writing the footnote.
Now that you know how to add footnotes to Google Docs, you can use this whenever there is text in your document that needs more information.
If you’re using the Google Docs app on your iPhone, you can also add footnotes there. The next section will show you how to do this.
The Documents app for your iPhone has almost the same features as the desktop version of the app.
This includes the ability to create footnotes.
Step 1: Open the Google Docs app on your iPhone.
Step 2: Open the document for editing.
Step 3: Tap on the pencil icon in the lower right corner of the screen.
Step 4: Choose where you want to place the footnote.
Step 5: Click on the + button at the top of the screen.
Step 6: Scroll down and select the Footnote option.
Step 7: Enter the footnote content, then click the check mark.
Now that you can insert footnotes on your iPhone and on your computer, you can use this handy feature on any device you need.
If your document contains a footnote that you no longer need, you can remove it.
However, you cannot remove it from the footer of the document. What you really need to do is find the footnote number within the document content and then remove it from there.
As mentioned earlier, the keyboard shortcut for adding a footnote in Google Docs is Ctrl + Alt + F.
Footnotes can also be a good way to indicate the source of the information you’ve included in your document. If you have many sources and need to create a working citation page, you may want to read our guide on hanging indents if you need this type of format.