How to insert citations and a reference list in Word

Word has had its own citation tools for years, and for a short document they work. This guide walks through them properly — including the bits that trip people up, like page numbers and Harvard — then explains where they stop being enough, and what reference managers do differently.

The menus below are from Word for Microsoft 365 on Windows. Word for Mac and Word on the web put the same tools on the same References tab, with small differences in wording.

How to insert a citation in Word, step by step

1. Choose your citation style first

On the References tab, find the Style drop-down in the Citations & Bibliography group and choose a style — APA, Chicago, Harvard, IEEE, MLA and a few others are built in. You can change it later and Word will reformat every citation, but setting it first means what you see while you write is what you will send.

2. Add a source and cite it

1. Click in your text exactly where the citation should go — usually just before the full stop.
2. Choose References › Insert Citation › Add New Source.
3. Pick the Type of Source — book, journal article, report, web site and so on. The fields change to suit it.
4. Fill in the author, title, year and publisher. Tick Show All Bibliography Fields if you need volume, issue, DOI or a URL.
5. Press OK. Word inserts the citation — for example (Huynh, 2024) — and saves the source for reuse.

3. Cite the same source again

Next time, References › Insert Citation lists every source already in the document. Pick one and it is inserted in the current style. No retyping.

If you don’t have the details yet

Choose Insert Citation › Add New Placeholder to drop in a marker with a short name. Word flags it until you fill in the source, which saves breaking your train of thought mid-paragraph.

How to add a page number to a citation

Direct quotes and specific figures usually need a page — (Huynh, 2024, p. 47). Word hides this one:

1. Click the citation so its box appears.
2. Click the small arrow on the right of the box and choose Edit Citation.
3. Type the page in Pages. In the same dialog you can suppress the author, year or title — handy for “Huynh (2024) found that…”.

How to add the reference list (bibliography) in Word

1. Put the cursor where the list should go, normally on a new page at the end.
2. Choose References › Bibliography and pick References, Bibliography or Works Cited — they differ only in the heading.
3. Word lists every source you have cited, sorted and formatted in the current style. If you add or edit a citation later, click the list and choose Update Citations and Bibliography.

Harvard referencing in Word

Word’s style list includes a Harvard option (labelled Harvard – Anglia in most versions). That is one institution’s version of Harvard, and there is no single official Harvard style: universities, government style manuals and firms all differ on punctuation, “et al.” rules, where the year goes in the reference list and how to cite reports and legislation. So Word’s Harvard is a reasonable start but rarely matches the guide you have been told to follow.

Editing a Word citation style means editing the XSL files Word uses behind the scenes, which is not something most people want to do. If your organisation has a house style, a reference manager that lets you define the in-text and reference-list format is far less painful — see custom citation styles.

Where Word’s built-in tools run out

For a single essay, Word’s tools are fine. They start to hurt when:

• Sources live in each document. Word keeps a Current List per document and a Master List on your own computer. A colleague cannot see your sources unless you send them the file, and copying between lists is done source by source in References › Manage Sources.
• A fix has to be made everywhere. Spot a wrong year after the reference has been used in five reports, and you correct it five times — in five files, possibly owned by five people.
• Your sources aren’t journal articles. Standards, guidelines, legislation and client reports have to be squeezed into the nearest source type, and the reference list shows it.
• There is nowhere for the PDF. Word stores the reference, not the paper, so checking a quote means hunting for the file.
• Citations get flattened. Convert citation to static text — or pasting into another document — turns a live citation into plain text that will never update again.

Citing with a reference manager instead

A reference manager keeps your references (and usually the PDFs) in a library outside Word, and adds a pane or toolbar to Word so you can search that library and insert citations. The best-known ones each have a Word add-in: EndNote’s Cite While You Write, Zotero’s Word plugin and Mendeley Cite. The steps are broadly the same:

1. Install the add-in for your version of Word (desktop, Mac or Word on the web — check it supports yours).
2. Add references to the library — by DOI, by importing a PDF, or from a database export.
3. In Word, open the add-in, search for the reference and insert it. The add-in builds the reference list as you go.
4. Change the style from the add-in, not Word’s Style menu.

One catch: a citation inserted by one tool is only understood by that tool. If a colleague opens the document without the same add-in and library, they can read the citations but not change them — and mixing Word’s own citations with an add-in’s in one document is a reliable way to get a broken reference list.

If you are deciding which one to use, our guide to choosing reference management software for a team compares them, including Zotero vs EndNote.

Citations for a whole team

Most citation advice assumes one person writing one thesis. In a consultancy, agency or research team, the same handful of sources turns up in dozens of reports written by different people — and that is where per-document and per-person libraries cause the most rework.

That is the problem Citepool was built for. Your team keeps one shared library, and the Citepool add-in for Word (on Windows, Mac and the web) inserts citations that stay linked to it:

• Fix a reference once and every document that cites it picks up the change on its next refresh — in-text citations, numbering and the reference list.
• Use your house style — Harvard, APA 7, Vancouver, or your own in-text and reference-list templates.
• Cite page numbers, suppress the author or group several references in one bracket from the same pane.
• Keep the PDFs with the references, with every page searchable, so checking a quote is one click.

See how it works, browse the features, or follow the Word add-in install guide.

Footnotes and endnotes in Word

If you searched for “how to insert endnote in Word” you may mean Word’s notes rather than the EndNote software. Both live on the References tab:

• Footnote (bottom of the page): References › Insert Footnote, or Ctrl + Alt + F on Windows.
• Endnote (end of the document): References › Insert Endnote, or Ctrl + Alt + D on Windows.

Word numbers them automatically and renumbers when you move text. Note-based styles such as Chicago notes put the citation in the footnote itself; author–date styles like Harvard and APA put it in the text and use the reference list instead.

Questions

Can Microsoft Word do Harvard referencing?

Yes — choose Harvard in References › Style. It is one version of Harvard, so check it against the guide you are expected to follow.

How do I add a page number to a citation in Word?

Click the citation, open its drop-down arrow, choose Edit Citation and type the page.

Why didn’t my reference list update?

Word’s list doesn’t refresh itself. Click it and choose Update Citations and Bibliography. If a citation was converted to static text, Word no longer knows it is a citation — delete it and insert it again.

Can I use my sources in another document?

Yes: References › Manage Sources lets you copy sources between the current document and your Master List. The Master List is on your computer, so colleagues don’t share it — a shared library is the way round that.

How do I add Zotero or Mendeley to Word?

Install the tool’s own Word add-in (Zotero installs its plugin from Zotero’s settings; Mendeley Cite comes from Microsoft’s add-in store), then use its tab or pane in Word rather than Word’s Insert Citation.