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Serious footnote bug in Word 2013

I have been trying for the last few hours to print a document and prepare it for publication in the near future.  To do this I need to export the document as PDF/A format.  Word 2013 fails to do that without trying to tell me that it can't find a file, asking whether it has been moved, deleted, etc.  The answer, of course, is no.  I can save to PDF format without problems but cannot save to PDF/A.

So, I try to print the document as a PDF/A rather than export.  It prints but I find that a number of the footnotes are doubled and even tripled in some places in the document even though the document has no tripled footnotes in those places.  In addition, the footnotes are supposed to restart the numbering for each page but on a number of pages this does not happen even though I set it to do that for the entire multi-section document.  This usually happens when I print to PDF/A using a PDF printer.  I saw it happen a couple times using the PDF export function in Word 2013.

I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling with no effect.  In fact, I have done it so many times that I have to call Microsoft each time I want to reinstall Office 2013 and do not want to go through that hassle again.  I have removed PDF Architect, thinking that might help.  Nothing helps.

I am approaching a deadline and really need this to work soon.  Suggestions?

Answer
Answer

I found a workaround.  I found that if I do not print while Word 2013 is open first, I can use PDF Creator to create PDF/A compliant documents by right-clicking on the docx file, and choosing to use PDF Creator to print the document.  Oddly enough, when I do it that way, the errors in the footnotes do not show up in the text, no matter what format of footnote I use.

PDF Creator opens the document using Word 2013 and then prints to a PDF/A printer queue I set up, but no footnote errors show up at all.  The footnote errors only show up in the resultant document if I try to print from within Word 2013 when Word 2013 is launched first and the document opened in Word 2013.

To me, that looks like a bug in the way Word 2013 itself handles exporting footnoted documents to PDF files.  I still cannot get Word 2013 to export PDF/A files, however.  I have to use a workaround when the functionality should just work in Office 2013.

Updated to add:

I also noticed that when Word 2013 is open, it automatically repaginates the document before printing or exporting it.  I watched a couple of the pages that were affected and while the document repaginated before exporting or printing the footnotes changed just before exporting or printing.  It seems that the automatic repagination may be behind the issue because the repagination is not always complete before exporting/printing begins.  Why on earth does the document repaginate before printing anyway? I can see no benefit to this behavior.  But, this explains why it is that I can print a PDF/A document without errors if Word 2013 isn't opened and printing/exporting initiated from within Word 2013.  So, it looks like the issue is within Word 2013 to me.

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Last updated October 5, 2021 Views 949 Applies to: