How can I transfer a Word document with endnotes into Publisher without losing the notes?

Question

How can I transfer a Word document with endnotes into Publisher without losing the notes?

Anonymous

How do I get the endnotes in a Word document to carry over intact into Publisher 16? Copy/paste, insert, import all result in the note number disappearing. Copy/paste the notes separately brings over the text only, not the note numbers. Thank you for any advice!

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

Accepted answer

1 additional answer

Answer 1

Hi Jade,

Thank you for reaching out to Microsoft Community. We're happy to assist you.

Unfortunately, Microsoft Publisher does not natively support Word’s endnotes or footnotes, so when you copy or import a Word document into Publisher, endnote formatting and linking are lost — this includes both the superscript numbers in the main text and the corresponding endnote text and numbering.

That said, here are workaround options to transfer a Word document with endnotes into Publisher without losing the content or clarity, even if the automatic linking is lost:

Best Workaround: Manual Conversion with Superscript Referencing

Step 1: Prepare the Document in Word

Open your Word document.
Go to References > Show Notes.
Copy the entire set of endnotes from the bottom of the document into a new Word document or a section at the end of your main content.

Step 2: Convert Endnotes to Static Text

To preserve the numbering and superscripts:

Press Alt + F11 to open the VBA editor in Word.
Use the following macro to convert all endnotes into static superscript references:

Sub ConvertEndnotesToText()
    Dim i As Integer
    For i = ActiveDocument.Endnotes.Count To 1 Step -1
        Dim noteText As String
        noteText = ActiveDocument.Endnotes(i).Range.Text
        ActiveDocument.Endnotes(i).Reference.InsertAfter "[" & i & "]"
        ActiveDocument.Endnotes(i).Delete
        Selection.EndKey Unit:=wdStory
        Selection.TypeParagraph
        Selection.TypeText Text:="[" & i & "] " & noteText
    Next i
End Sub

This replaces each endnote reference with a static number like [1] and appends the full note at the end of the document.

Step 3: Copy into Publisher

In Word, select all your updated content (including the static “[1]” references and the new endnote section).
Copy (Ctrl+C) and paste into Publisher (Ctrl+V).

This way, you preserve the endnote numbering and include all the note text, even though it won’t be automatically linked.

I hope these solutions can help you to solve this problem. If you need any further assistance or clarification, feel free to reach out—we're here to help. Thank you very much for your understanding and your cooperation.

Best regards,

Clover-L - MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist.

Answer 2

Thanks for your quick reply. It worked, with some glitches, which were all fixable. The note numbers in the text were no longer superscript, the notes were in reverse numerical order, and the notes lost text formatting like italics for titles. Copying all the text and notes into Publisher at once caused all the text to stay in the first page text box while the notes appeared in the second page text box flowing over to subsequent pages. This was probably because I had a section break in the Word doc to separate the notes. Copying just the body text into Publisher then copying the notes separately fixed that. I still have to reformat all the note numbers in the text and note pages, but that's not too bad.

Thanks again.

Share via

How can I transfer a Word document with endnotes into Publisher without losing the notes?

1 additional answer