How to Add Footnote in Excel – How to Guide

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You would definitely be needing to add footnotes while working on a financial report. With footnotes, you can have a transparent view so that you can show vital assumptions or clarifications. It also helps you in analyzing the outcome accurately. For beginners, it would be sometimes difficult to ad footnotes to financial reports that’s why they tend to know how to add footnotes in Excel.

Though it is an awesome option to add footnotes to your sheet because it gives a clear-cut view of your data. Moreover, a footnote is also helpful in describing the unusual figure besides giving a reference to a source of data.

How to Add Footnotes in Excel Spreadsheet?

Below are some easy-to-follow steps you can use to perform this function:

  • Open the Excel window and click on a workbook.
  • Open the worksheet in which you need to add a footnote. When you are having more than one worksheet, click on the sheet tab given at the bottom of the Excel screen.
  • Choose the “Page Layout” tab. you can find this tab located at the uppermost left corner of the Excel window.

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  • Click on the page setup button. For Windows users, it is shaped as a little square with an arrow at the bottom of the panel. For Mac users, it is located at the icon bar placed at the top of the screen.

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  • Choose the Header/Footer option.

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  • Click on a footer design given in the Footer menu. Choose the one you like from the drop-down menu. Or else you can even choose customized designs as well.
  • To make a customized design, you need to click on the “Custom Footer” menu, in which you will see three empty boxes that show the left, center, and right areas. Put the text you need to add as a footnote in the given box.
  • From the given options, you can choose the formatted text, and add a page number, date, time, file path, file name, sheet name, picture, number of pages, and format pictures. Each option is shown by symbols.
  • Choose the “Print Preview” option. On the Excel sheet, you will not see the footnotes.
  • Press the back button to go back to the page setup. You will be able to edit the footnote since it does not appear as you need.
  • Hit the OK button and the footnote will appear on the screen.

How to Add Footnote in Excel with Context Menu?

Let’s understand how you can add a footnote in Excel with the help of the Context Menu.

  • Select a cell in which you need to add a footnote.
  • Right-click on the cell
  • A new window will appear, from which you need to find and click on Insert Comment.

footnotes context menu

  • A text box will appear with a username.

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  • Here, you can add whatever comment you need and it will be added to the selected cell.

Wrap Up

A regular Excel user knows how important features Excel has. footnotes are highly recommended when you are working on a financial report. They are useful to make and fill tables in Excel. Sometimes, people think Excel features are similar to Word. In reality, it is not the truth. Though some features are intended to work similarly however they are not similar functionally.

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